If you’re trying to choose a health plan, but having trouble deciding which is best, you now have a new way to compare them: The state Department of Health Web site. The department has recently posted charts detailing the services offered by each of the plans statewide. By clicking onto www.health.state.ri.us, consumers now may view the disclosures that Health Maintenance Organizations in Rhode Island are required by law to make. Information is arranged in charts to make the comparisons easier.
For example, each of the state-certified plans is listed with its customer service and toll-free phone numbers. Consumers may also download, using the Adobe Acrobat format, specific information about each plan’s policies on issues such as emergency care, second opinions and confidentiality. If your computer doesn’t have Adobe, you can download it from the department Web site for free.
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The new service is designed to help consumers keep pace with the changes taking place in health care, said Dr. Patricia A. Nolan, director of the department. Information from the HMOs is certified by the department. It will be updated as each plan comes up for re-certification.
“This is not detailed information and it’s not updated every week – you should read their (the health plans) whole set of information,” said Nolan. But she added that there is enough data to give consumers a sense of what each plan offers. “This should give you a really good overview,” she said.
Each of the health plans featured on the Web site answers a set of questions, which were developed by the department and through focus groups to determine what the public wants to know. For example, you can find out what a plan’s policies are if you have to visit an emergency room. You can get a sense of the plan itself by looking at the way the questions are answered, said Christopher F. Koller, who is the chief executive officer of Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island and president of the Rhode Island Association of Health Maintenance Organizations.
The department has already mailed booklets called the Consumer’s Guide to Health Plans in Rhode Island to residents. It is published with the cooperation of the health plans in the state. It provides general information about health plans. For example, it details how health plans may limit payment on covered services and explains what benefits health insurers are required to provide by law. The flyer also contains a glossary of terms used by health plans. The definitions to terms such as co-payment, concurrent review, and inpatient services are standardized so that they apply to all health care plans.
Nolan said the department didn’t spend a lot of money on the printing of the guide because it wanted to keep the costs down. But she added that now that the information is available on the Internet, consumers no longer have to rely on the printed copies.
“When we did the original printing we didn’t spend a lot of money. I want to give people lots of information, but I don’t want to increase the cost of health care,” Nolan said, referring to the flyer. “If they do lose it, they can go (to the computer). They don’t have to keep it at their fingertips.”
Robert J. Marshall Jr., assistant director of health, community affairs, for the state Department of Health, said the department plans to redesign the site in the next two years, as the state’s health plans come up for re-certification by the department, to make it easier to use and to provide more information to the public.
