Free

A free webinar facilitated by AcademyHealth on behalf of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Changes in Health Care Financing and Organization (HCFO) program and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

Date: May 15, 2013
Time: 2:00 - 3:30 p.m. ET

With an eye toward greater transparency, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently released data on the prices that more than 3000 hospitals charge for the 100 most common inpatient procedures.  These 2011 data underscore the wide variation among hospital prices across the country and within communities.  For example, average inpatient charges for services a hospital may provide in connection with a joint replacement range from a low of $5,300 at a hospital in Ada, Okla., to a high of $223,000 at a hospital in Monterey Park, Calif.  These data also show that hospital charges for similar services can vary significantly even within the same geographic area. 

As part of an ongoing effort to showcase important sources of data, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation joined CMS in offering this webinar on best practices in using analytics to transform data into actionable information. The webinar provided an overview of the data source, including what led CMS to produce the data, high level methodology, and how it can be accessed, and offered reactions from experts and elicited questions from participants.

Speakers

Moderator:

  • Susan Dentzer - Senior Policy Advisor, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Presenter:

  • Niall Brennan – Director, Office of Information Products and Data Analytics

Discussants:

  • Uwe Reinhardt - James Madison Professor of Political Economy, Princeton University
  • Suzanne Delbanco – Executive Director, Catalyst for Payment Reform


This free webinar is intended for researchers, policymakers, providers, and other stakeholders.