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

• 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

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