The Michigan Health & Hospital Association joins a growing list of hospital associations, states and payers who have adopted policies to stop billing patients for certain serious preventable errors ("never events") and hospital-acquired conditions. This follows on from Medicare's decision to cease payment from 2008, for specific hospital medical errors.

Spectrum Health in Michigan has begun posting on its Web site the average payments it receives for 246 procedures from Medicare, Medicaid and commercial insurers, reports Health Data Management.

The Michigan Health & Hospital Association (MHA) has launched their new Web site. As previously blogged, the MI Hospital Inform Web site (www.mihospitalinform.org) enables consumers to review charge, payment, and quality information about 146 hospitals in Michigan.

The launch of this Web site is an effort to increase transparency and hold hospitals accountable to consumers, reports the Heartland Institute.

Michigan Health & Hospital Association plans to launch a new Web site (www.mihospitalinform.org) Jan. 1, reports Crain's Detroit Business.

In a move towards greater health care transparency, the new site will make 146 of Michigan hospitals quality-of-care and pricing information available to the public.

Vermont ranks as the healthiest state based on 20 measures of wellness, according to a report released on Monday by the United Health Foundation as reported on KaiserNetwork.org. For the report, UHF and the American Public Health Association and Partnership for Prevention rated each state on measures of wellness, such as rates of obesity, infant mortality, cancer deaths and high school graduation.

The following is a summary of legislation by state regarding the disclosure by hospitals of their hospital infection rates.

Arkansas

In January 2008, Michigan will join several other states in providing greater hospital pricing transparency, when its not-for-profit hospitals will begin posting online the prices for at least 50 common medical procedures. iHealthBeat reports that the Michigan Health & Hospital Association, which represents the state's 146 not-for-profit hospitals, will host the voluntary hospital price database on its Web site.

As reported in HealthDecisions.org today, Spectrum Health and other West Michigan hospitals, faced with inadequate payments from Medicare and Medicaid, are planning rate increases to offset those losses. Spectrum expects to lose nearly $110 million caring for Medicare and Medicaid patients in the fiscal year beginning July 1. As a result, Spectrum plans to raise rates it charges patients at Butterworth, Blodgett and DeVos Children's hospitals an average of 7.25 percent. Partly due to Spectrum's rate increase, Priority Health, an HMO owned by Spectrum, plan to raise the premium it charges members an average of 6.5 percent.

Michigan Department of Community Health announced extensive upgrades to the state's existing prescription drug web site, including the addition of 120 new prescription drugs that Michigan consumers can now evaluate to view lowest prices in their area.

The expanded web site - www.michigandrugprices.com - provides information to consumers so they may search prescription drug prices by city or by zip code. Users can select the pharmacy closest to them, or look at pharmacy prices from as far as 100 miles away from their homes - within Michigan's borders. As a new feature, users also have immediate directional access to the pharmacy of choice, as pharmacy locations are immediately linked via Mapquest.