AmeriHealth Administrators Offers Customers Expanded Information on Hospitals, Physicians, Costs
Enhanced Web Tool Supports Consumer Decision-Making
Horsham, PA - June 27, 2005
AmeriHealth Administrators customers can now access nationwide data for quality ratings of physicians and hospitals, patient safety data, and hospital cost information to make more informed decisions about their healthcare options. The information is the latest enhancement of AmeriHealth Administrators’ consumer decision-making support services, which are designed to give individuals a wide range of useable tools and information to make better decisions about their medical care and its costs.
AmeriHealth Administrators is offering this tool to its customers through an agreement with Health Grades, Inc., a leading independent health care provider-performance measurement company. Health Grades, Inc. supplies quality and patient-safety ratings, and information and advisory services, to healthcare providers, employers, health plans and insurance companies.
“As a customer-focused organization, we feel it is important to empower our customers with tools that support them in making informed decisions about their healthcare. We view this as an essential element of consumer driven health plans,” said Gideon Hill, M.D., Senior Medical Director. “With HealthGrades, members use the latest online tools to access comprehensive provider data, enabling them to participate in the development of a care plan that most closely meets their needs and preferences.”
AmeriHealth Administrators customers can access these online tools through the secure web portal. In addition to information available through online provider directories, AmeriHealth Administrators’ customers are able to learn more about a doctor's medical education and board certification status. They can also compare the quality of hospitals and view safe practices information that are voluntarily reported by hospitals.
AmeriHealth Administrators customers can access hospital cost data to find out the range of a hospital's charges for treating over a hundred medical issues—such as gallbladder removal, coronary bypass surgery and knee replacement surgery—and compare the results with other hospitals.
Health Grades, Inc. uses hospital discharge data to rate the quality of more than a hundred hospital procedures and diagnoses as five-star, three-star, or one-star. Patient safety data ratings are from the Leapfrog Group's voluntary patient safety initiative surveys. Cost data are compiled from publicly available hospital claims data. Leapfrog is an initiative made up of more than 160 companies and organizations that buy health care and work together towards improving the safety, quality and affordability of health care.
Health Grades, Inc.'s physician-related data is cross-matched and verified from a variety of public and private data sources with board certification information coming from the American Board of Medical Specialties or the Bureau of Osteopathic Specialists.
HealthGrades is the latest offering in AmeriHealth Administrators’ consumer healthcare decision-making tools and resources that are designed to help individuals be more proactive in their health care. As part of its consumer-driven health benefits strategy, AmeriHealth Administrators also offers a health management program that supports individuals facing treatment decisions or everyday health concerns. Further, the program encompasses disease management, decision support, health coaching, outreach and educational resources. In addition, AmeriHealth Administrators offers plan sponsors a comprehensive medical management program with URAC accreditation for health utilization management.
HealthAccount+—AmeriHealth Administrators’ consumer-driven health benefits services—includes Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs); Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs); plus comprehensive consumer tools and resources including the AmeriHealth+ account access card. AmeriHealth Administrators also administers Health Savings Account (HSA)-compatible high deductible health plans through its HealthAccount+ product line and has a preferred relationship with Bancorp Bank to make HSA services available to its customers.
AmeriHealth Administrators is a leading national third party administrator (TPA) serving self-funded health plans throughout the
U.S.
As a full-service TPA, AmeriHealth Administrators offers customers total flexibility in plan design and integrated implementation, providing customized, cost-effective health benefits solutions to help achieve goals for savings, satisfaction and outcomes.
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