Health Insurance Price Data: It’s Out There, but It’s Not for the Faint of Heart

(By Julie Appleby for Kaiser Health News)

Data wonks with mighty computers are overjoyed. Ordinary consumers, not so much.

That’s the reaction about three weeks into a data dump of enormous proportions. Health insurers are posting their negotiated rates for just about every type of medical service they cover across all providers.

But so much data is flowing in from insurers — tens of thousands of colossal digital files from a single insurer is not unusual — that it could still be weeks before data firms put it into usable forms for its intended targets: employers, researchers, and even patients. Continue reading here…

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

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