Analyzing the Impact of the Now iKnow Health Care Price Transparency Tool

Not Applicable

Completed

• Conditions: Use of a Price Transparency Tool; no Specific Condition Targeted
• Interventions: Other: lottery for tool users to win a $500 prize; Other: enhanced promotion of the tool to employers and members

• Registration Number: NCT02053844
• Lead Sponsor: Alison Galbraith

Brief Summary

This project aims to assess the impact of a web-based health care cost and quality tool that is being implemented by a health plan for its members. The study will focus on members working for medium to large employers that have more than 90% of employees enrolled in deductible and tiered network health plans. The study will use an interrupted time series (ITS) design that includes random allocation of half of these employers to a study arm that will receive enhanced promotion of the tool and a $500 lottery incentive for its use in order to increase take-up. With these two study groups (a "high-dose" group receiving enhanced promotion and a lottery, and a "low-dose" group receiving routine promotion of the tool), the study will be able to evaluate whether access to a price transparency tool leads to reduced costs and more value-driven member behavior, and whether extra promotion increases take-up.

Members in the high-dose group who use the tool will be eligible to enter a monthly lottery to win a $500 prize during the 12-month intervention period. In addition to the lottery, employers in the high-dose group will receive additional promotional strategies such as a mailing and messages through the plan's member web portal to promote the tool and the lottery, and e-mails and flyers for employers to promote the tool and lottery to employees.

The aims of this project are to: 1) examine take-up of the tool and factors that predict take-up; and 2) to examine the impact of the tool on total and out-of-pocket health care costs and utilization

Detailed Description

Not available

Study Timeline

• Study First Submitted: 2014-01-31
• Study First Submitted QC: 2014-01-31
• Study First Posted: 2014-02-04
• Study Start: 2014-08
• Primary Completion: 2015-12
• Study Completion: 2015-12
• Status Verified: 2016-08
• Last Update Submitted: 2016-08-18
• Last Update Posted: 2016-08-19

Recruitment & Eligibility

• Status: COMPLETED
• Sex: All
• Target Recruitment: 81000

Inclusion Criteria

Health plan members from employers with at least 40 subscribers, of which at least 90% are currently in deductible plans or tiered network plans, and of which at least 80% were in deductible or tiered network plans in the prior year

Exclusion Criteria

Members in non-group accounts and members in Medicare plans; members in states outside Massachusetts, New Hampshire, or Maine

Study & Design

• Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
lottery and enhanced promotion of tool	lottery for tool users to win a $500 prize	tool users in the intervention arm will be eligible to enter a monthly lottery to win one of two monthly drawings of a $500 gift card, and will receive enhanced promotion of the tool (mailed promotion, promotional message on the member web portal, and promotion through employers to employees)
lottery and enhanced promotion of tool	enhanced promotion of the tool to employers and members	tool users in the intervention arm will be eligible to enter a monthly lottery to win one of two monthly drawings of a $500 gift card, and will receive enhanced promotion of the tool (mailed promotion, promotional message on the member web portal, and promotion through employers to employees)

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
mean per-member-per-month total health care costs	monthly for 12 months	employer level per-member-per-month total costs based on claims data

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
mean per-member-per-month out-of-pocket costs	monthly for 12 months	employer level per-member-per-month out-of-pocket costs based on claims data
percent of subjects using the tool	measured quarterly for 12 months	Based on tool usage tracking data
per-member-per-month utilization of health care services	monthly for 12 months	Employer-level utilization of health services based on claims data, including emergency department visits, encounters, lab services, radiology services, inpatient hospitalizations, MRIs, prescriptions

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care; 🇺🇸 Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States