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Truven Health Analytics Health Care Cost Transparency Tool Reaches 20 Million User Mark
[March 13, 2014]

Truven Health Analytics Health Care Cost Transparency Tool Reaches 20 Million User Mark


ANN ARBOR, Mich. --(Business Wire)--

Truven Health Analytics today announced that its consumer health cost transparency tool - the Treatment Cost Calculator - now reaches 20 million consumers through a rapidly-growing, nationwide client-base of large employers and health plans who offer the tool to their members.

The Treatment Cost Calculator is an online reference-based pricing tool that provides accurate, real-time estimates of out-of-pocket costs that are personalized to individual consumers, incorporating their specific benefit designs, providers, and locations. In January, the tool was enhanced to allow an employer or health plan to establish a reference price for any covered service. Consumers can use this reference-based pricing information to easily identify providers that offer the service they need at a cost that is at or below the reference price.

"In today's consumer-directed health care landscape, where costs for the same treatment ca vary significantly within the same market - some by more than 100% - there is a growing demand for definitive, concrete data on treatment cost," said Barbara Graovac, senior vice president and general manager, Truven Health Analytics. "Consumers, health plans, and providers need timely, accurate, and trusted information to make critical healthcare decisions, and this tool is now enabling millions to do just that."



In a recent survey of users, 80 percent said the Treatment Cost Calculator's estimates helped them understand their out-of-pocket financial responsibility, and 90 percent of the estimates were accurate within 10 percent of the actual cost.

Part of the Truven Health suite of consumer health solutions, the Treatment Cost Calculator is accessible to more than 20 million individuals through their payer or provider. The consumer health solutions are based on the deep healthcare data and analytic expertise that powers the comprehensive suite of Truven Health enterprise decision support tools and services. These solutions help customers reduce healthcare costs, improve employee wellness and productivity, manage quality, performance, and outcomes, and adapt successfully to healthcare reform. Truven Health Analytics counts over 500 large employers and health plans among its current customers.


About Truven Health Analytics

At Truven Health Analytics we are dedicated to delivering the answers our clients need to improve healthcare quality and reduce costs. We are a healthcare analytics company with unmatched data assets and advanced analytic expertise that have served the global healthcare industry for more than 30 years. These combine with our unique perspective from across the entire healthcare industry to give hospitals, clinicians, employers, health plans, government agencies, life sciences researchers, and policymakers the confidence they need to make the right decisions, right now, every time. With our healthcare-specific expertise and tools for managing complex and disparate data, we understand how to implement and integrate tailored analytics that drive improvement.

Truven Health Analytics owns some of the most trusted brands in healthcare, such as Micromedex, ActionOI, 100 Top Hospitals, MarketScan, and Advantage Suite. Truven Health has its principal offices in Ann Arbor, Mich.; Chicago; and Denver. For more information, please visit www.truvenhealth.com.


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