Clinical trial NCT02053844: Analyzing the Impact of the Now iKnow Health Care Price Transparency Tool
Official title: Analyzing the Impact of the Now iKnow Health Care Price Transparency Tool
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: no Specific Condition Targeted
Use of a Price Transparency Tool
Keywords: health care costs
quality of health care
Lead sponsor: Harvard Pilgrim Health Care
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: National Institute on Aging (NIA)
name: National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
name: Harvard Pilgrim Health Care
name: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
First posted: 2014-02-04
Enrollment: 81000
Sex: ALL
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

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


Eligibility criteria: 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

Primary outcomes:
measure: mean per-member-per-month total health care costs
timeFrame: monthly for 12 months
Secondary outcomes:
measure: percent of subjects using the tool
timeFrame: measured quarterly for 12 months
measure: mean per-member-per-month out-of-pocket costs
timeFrame: monthly for 12 months
measure: per-member-per-month utilization of health care services
timeFrame: monthly for 12 months
Other outcomes:
measure: reasons for using the tool
timeFrame: measured with each use of the tool, over 12 months
Locations:
city: Wellesley
country: United States
facility: Harvard Pilgrim Health Care
state: Massachusetts
Study officials:
affiliation: Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute and Harvard Medical Schooll
name: Alison Galbraith, MD, MPH
role: STUDY_DIRECTOR
affiliation: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
name: Jonathan Gruber, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References: