Find a Doctor Expands to Find Care & Costs January 2022
Effective January 1, 2022, the Find a Doctor tool on the Employee Benefits website will be enhanced and renamed Find Care & Costs. The upgraded self-service tool will help increase cost and quality transparency by giving NRECA Medical Plan participants the ability to search for and compare cost information and quality ratings for health care providers in their area for certain procedures.
In addition to serving participants better, these enhancements are being made to ensure the NRECA Medical Plan complies with the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, requirement for group health plans to make price comparison information available that promotes provider-specific cost and quality of care information by January 1, 2023.
To meet these requirements, NRECA will implement the Find Care & Costs tool from UnitedHealthcare (UHC) for the UHC network. In 2022, Find Care & Costs searches will return:
- Negotiated provider fees for service and average areas cost
- UHC quality care ratings
- Patient-provided star ratings and reviews
The cost functionality of Find Care & Costs will be expanded for 2023 to provide estimated out-of-pocket costs based on the cost-sharing features (e.g., deductibles and coinsurance) of a participant’s plan.
For non-UHC networks (e.g., participants in Alaska with Beech Street as their primary network), the cost transparency tool will be UMR’s IBM Treatment Cost Calculator tool. While the treatment cost calculator provides cost information, it will not provide quality ratings.
Using Find Care & Costs as they make health care decisions can help participants—as well as the plan—incur lower claims expenses and receive the best quality care.