State of Oregon launches hospital cost comparison site

I thought I must have misheard OPB reporters this morning when they discussed the release of the hospital cost comparison website; it didn’t show up on oregon.gov’s main page until later today. The home page for the project follows the state’s standard unnavigable format, which of course means that the most important information for consumers is also the hardest to locate and access. However, after several minutes of browsing around and following poorly-described links, I found it: you can compare hospital rates on a variety of procedures here.

Interesting things:

• Data is from 2005 and apparently will be updated yearly, according to the fact sheet
• Rural Oregonians, who already know they don’t have a lot of options when it comes to choosing hospitals, might be disappointed to see how little data is available on a lot of small-town hospitals
• When I checked the rates on the two surgeries I had last year, I learned that my hospital of choice, Providence St. Vincent’s, is about twice as expensive on average as other local hospitals