Idea of the Day: A "Coverage Facts" Label for Health Insurance

To improve transparency and standardize information, we suggest the development of a new information tool for health insurance consumers: a “Coverage Facts” label for health insurance policies, modeled on the Nutrition Facts label required for packaged foods.

A Coverage Facts label would summarize key features in a health insurance policy and illustrate how it might cover care for a given treatment scenario. The label would highlight important estimates, such as total treatment costs and the amount the patient might be expected to pay. The label could break down patient cost liability by type of service (highlighting the impact of excluded or limited benefits, for example) and by type of cost sharing (illustrating how co-pays might add up during treatment of a chronic condition).

For more on this topic, please see:

• Coverage When It Counts by Karen Pollitz, Eliza Bangit, Jennifer Libster, Stephanie Lewis, and Nicole Johnston