New tool aims to remove the mystery of health care costs at Connecticut hospitals

A new cost estimator tool launched by the Office of Health Strategy reveals how much medical treatment costs vary across Connecticut’s health care facilities.

Standard procedures, like knee replacements, can cost nearly three times as much at certain hospitals than they do at others.

“Most of the time, we don’t have an idea of what health care costs," Vicki Veltri, executive director of the Office of Health Strategy, said at a news conference Tuesday. “We know from our insurance bill how much we’re paying in premiums, how much our deductible is, how much our co-pay is, but we don’t know ... what the carriers are actually paying.”

To see how much each facility charges for a certain procedure, residents can visit healthscorect.com and select “Cost Estimator.” Select inpatient or outpatient, the specific medical service and desired location. Results can be sorted by cost, distance, length of stay (if inpatient) and facility name.

It also includes statewide cost medians for each procedure as a reference point for users. OHS said averages can be skewed by “outliers,” unusually high or low costs that result in a misleading final average cost. The median falls exactly in the middle of a group of numbers.

If a medical procedure costs $100, $500, $1,000, $3,000, and $7,000 at five different hospitals, the average cost would be $2,320. The median would be $1,000.

As of Tuesday, the statewide median cost for a total knee replacement is about $25,300, but varies from about $14,500 at Johnson Memorial Hospital in Stafford Springs to more than $40,700 at Yale-New Haven Hospital. The median patient stay for this procedure at Johnson Memorial is five days, while at Yale-New Haven it is two days.

The statewide median cost for a spinal MRI is $763, varying from about $230 at Hartford Hospital to about $1,700 at Stamford Hospital. Hartford Hospital charges 70% less than the statewide median, while Stamford Hospital charges 123% more than the statewide median.

Because the cost estimator does not account for facility or treatment quality, Veltri said to consider the tool as an “adjunct” to the quality scorecard OHS launched in August.

“Quality is just as important as cost,” she said. “Those two things cannot be separated. But it’s also true that high cost isn’t necessarily high quality.”

The scorecard uses national standards and reported patient experiences to rate health care organizations on a five-star system. By using both tools, patients can balance quality and cost to find a hospital that fits their needs.

Veltri reminded residents that each individual’s insurance policies may vary and to speak with their policy providers.

“Insurance plans have different deductibles and co-pays," Veltri said, in a statement. "We urge people to use the Healthscore CT cost estimator as a starting point and speak with their insurer about any deductibles or co-pays associated with their specific health policy before undergoing treatment.”

The tool provides information on almost 50 nonemergency procedures including MRIs, CT scans and mastectomies. The office will continue to expand the list as more information becomes available. Its estimates are based on information from the state’s all-payer claims database. UConn’s Analytics and Information Management Solutions team collaborated with OHS on data research and design.

Amanda Blanco can be reached at ablanco@courant.com.

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