Sage Transparency is a revolutionary, free, and publicly accessible web-based dashboard created by the Employers' Forum of Indiana as part of the Employer Price Transparency Project. Launched in 2022, the tool is designed to bring clarity to complex healthcare data and empower stakeholders to make informed, evidence-based decisions regarding healthcare purchasing and policy.
Product Overview and Key Benefits
The dashboard offers a comprehensive, unbiased view of hospital price, cost, and quality data, as well as price data for ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) and physician-administered medications across the United States. A key metric is the 'relative price,' which expresses the price of health care as a percentage of the Medicare reimbursement rate, allowing for easy comparison of what commercial insurers pay versus what Medicare pays for the same services at the same facility. The tool is primarily aimed at equipping employers, purchasing groups, policymakers, and journalists with the information needed to understand and compare prices, ultimately driving meaningful action to improve the healthcare marketplace.
Main Features and Capabilities (Sage Transparency 2.0)
Sage Transparency 2.0, a major update, integrates data from multiple trusted sources and provides a powerful set of features to explore, compare, and analyze healthcare data:
- Hospital, Health System, and State Comparison: Users can compare over 4,000 hospitals and 2,000 ASCs based on pricing, financials (like commercial breakeven price and operating profit margin), and quality measures.
- Quality Metrics: The dashboard includes expanded quality data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), such as overall hospital quality star ratings, patient experience star ratings, and readmission penalties.
- Medication Pricing: Provides brand-new drug price data for physician-administered medications at the hospital system and state level.
- Legislator Tab: A unique feature that allows users to view hospital price and quality data within every state and federal legislative district, helping policymakers and advocates see relevant data in their jurisdiction.
- Custom Data Purchase: While the dashboard is free, users have the option to purchase and download custom data sets for more in-depth, tailored analysis and reporting.
Target Users and Use Cases
Target Users: Employers, purchasing groups, policymakers, researchers, journalists, academics, and the general public.
Use Cases:
- Informing Employer Healthcare Purchasing: Employers with self-funded plans can use the data to negotiate fair reimbursement levels with hospitals and insurance companies, assessing the margin between a hospital's cost and price.
- Developing Health Policy: Policymakers and elected officials can utilize the Legislator Tab to access data relevant to their districts to inform legislative action.
- Research and Journalism: Providing unbiased, evidence-based data for articles, academic studies, and understanding the opaque nature of healthcare pricing.
- Consumer Choice: Individuals can make more informed decisions by comparing a hospital's cost and quality scores to prevent paying above-average prices for lower-quality care.
