The Department of Health and Human Services has issued a challenge to solicit designs and approaches that will work to address concerns from patients about the clarity of medical bills.
HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell spoke at the Health Datapalooza conference regarding the “A Bill You Can Understand” design challenge, which seeks to boost patient experience in the medical billing process, the agency said Monday.
Burwell said the challenge works to build on HHS efforts to help patients manage their own healthcare and create a new medical bill that will “simplify” the billing process in a way that is understandable to patients, doctors, hospitals and insurance companies.
AARP and Mad Pow have worked with HHS to administer the challenge and work to draw attention to the impact of medical billing to patients, HHS said.
Two winners — selected for the bill design and for a transformational approach to the medical billing system — will be featured on the challenge website and win $5,000 each as well as an opportunity to feature the designs at the Health 2.0 Annual Fall Conference in September.
The challenge is open until Aug. 10 and the winners will be announced in September.
Cambia Health Solutions, Geisinger Health System, INTEGRIS Health, The MetroHealth System, Providence Health & Services and the University of Utah Health Care have also committed to test or implement the winning designs for their patients, HHS added.
