Do doctors throughout Maine charge the same price for a physical?

Would it be cheaper to have a blood test done at the lab down the street?

If a hospital is more expensive, does that mean it’s better?

A new website aims to answer those questions. 

Created by the Maine Health Data Organization, a state agency that collects health care data from insurance companies, CompareMaine.org allows users to compare the average cost of more than 200 medical procedures at more than 170 medical facilities in Maine. Visitors can also compare quality ratings for many facilities.

Using grant funds from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, MHDO created CompareMaine in collaboration with Minneapolis Web designer Wowza and researchers from the Human Services Research Institute in Massachusetts and NORC at the University of Chicago.

The site allows users to look at the cost of procedures in eight categories: office visits, physical and occupational therapy, integrative medicine, mental and behavioral health services, ob/gyn, radiology and imaging, laboratory services and surgery. Each category offers several choices for procedures and provides an average cost of each statewide, as well as the average cost at individual medical facilities.

An ultrasound of the abdomen, for example, showed a state average cost of $451. Within 25 miles of Lewiston, costs ranged from $188 at the Central Maine Imaging Center in Lewiston to $1,181 at Stephens Memorial Hospital in Norway. 

Users can also compare costs by insurance company.

The site also provides quality ratings with facilities’ cost information, so users can consider safety and patient experience alongside price.

The site includes information on medical practices, hospitals, surgical centers, diagnostic imaging centers, labs and clinics.

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