"People deserve to know what their health care costs, how good it is, and the choices available to them," HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said. "The President's action today is a major step forward in giving consumers easy-to-use information about the quality and price of their health care. This is fundamental to achieving a health care system that delivers good value."

Secretary Leavitt said the effort will begin with information available now and will grow in volume and sophistication over time. National "alliance" organizations bringing together payers and health care provider organizations have been at work for several years developing quality measures for ambulatory care (especially physician care), hospitals and other institutions. The goal of the President's initiative is to strengthen and build on these efforts and ultimately present consumers with information in a single, easy-to-use spreadsheet format.


In Medicare, early measures of quality have been available for hospitals, nursing homes and other institutions for several years. These quality measures are in the process of being expanded through the collaborative "alliance" process. Some quality information is also available at present through insurers and other sources. In addition, Medicare began this year posting information on the Web about the prices it pays for hospital care. Medicare plans to begin posting information about payment rates to physicians this fall.

Ultimately, under the President's plan, local information on the quality and cost of care for most Americans would be available from the collaboration of health care providers, public and private payers, and other stakeholders in different regions of the country. The collaboration by providers and payers would create an unprecedented broad and reliable foundation of information on the quality and price of services delivered by each health care provider. Quality and cost measures developed through this process would be made available to consumers.

A federally-sponsored program is currently underway in six geographic areas that will examine best practices for aggregating and sharing information.

Under today's Executive Order, price and quality information would be made available for the particular benefit of those enrolled in the federally-administered or sponsored programs. However, much of this information will also be available in Web formats available to the general public.

For details go to
Fact Sheet: Health Care Transparency: Empowering Consumers to Save on Quality Care

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