Tip 98- Cost AND Quality

A recent Tip (# 89) offered yet another source for health care cost information: The Health Care
Blue Book. Your feedback was predictable. Knowing the cost of care is great but where can I
find out about quality?

Ask and ye shall receive!

Check out Medicare’s “Hospital Compare” website at this link. It takes a while to learn how to
navigate this site. For starters, you need to enter a zip code and actually select up to three
hospitals to compare. Then try clicking on the “Timely & Effective Care” or “Readmissions,
Complications & Deaths” tabs.

It’s a bit clumsy. And much of the data is incomplete.

That will change. The Affordable Care Act rewards quality with higher Medicare
reimbursements.