Scott’s mission to reduce health care costs in question
TALLAHASSEE — Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who has often criticized efforts to overhaul health care at the federal level, has contended for years that more needs to be done to lower the cost of what patients and the government pay for care.
But there are questions about whether his own effort to help drive down costs will be a success before he leaves office in 2019.
The Republican governor and former health-care executive wants legislators to spend $925,000 this year for a statewide database of insurance claims that can be used to provide the average costs of care at facilities and doctors’ offices across the state. That’s on top of $4 million the state already has spent on the project.
While Scott is asking for more money, his administration is also moving ahead on a proposed rule, which some argue goes beyond what state law allows, that would require insurance companies or Medicaid HMOs that contract with the state as well as affiliates of the companies and HMOs to submit insurance claims on all of their Florida policyholders.
Justin Senior, secretary of the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, testified to a Senate panel last month that the state is going to take the claims data and publish the average prices for nearly 300 medical procedures at hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers across the state. He said the information will enable people to “get closer to the point as consumers where we can actually shop for health-care procedures.”
An early iteration of the state website, FloridaHealthPriceFinder.com has been available to the public and contains cost information on 295 health-care bundles, ranging from acne to X-rays.
The AHCA signed a contract with Health Care Cost Institute, or HCCI, to collect and make available Florida-specific claims data and to develop and carry out an interactive consumer website that displays the information.
AHCA spokeswoman Shelisha Coleman said the site had 3,288 visitors between Nov. 28, when it was first launched, and Tuesday.