Healthcare cost transparency
Helping make your coverage and personal expenses more clear in advance
Revealing healthcare costs
Federal protections are in place to protect consumers and require health plans like Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota (Blue Cross) to publicly disclose price information for covered items and services for individual and group plans. Blue Cross meets these requirements and strives to exceed them to help consumers feel more informed along their healthcare journey.
Choose what's best for you
Cost isn't everything, but it's an important factor. Did you know that providers can charge different amounts for the same service? It's true. But you can decide where you go.
Our Find a Doctor tool helps you find providers in your network, which is always important to keep your out-of-pocket costs down. It includes other factors like location and language, plus personal cost estimates for many services based on how much you already spent during the year. This will help you evaluate your options and choose what's right for you.
Log in to your member website and search Find a Doctor to get the most relevant answers for your situation.
Cost comparisons
Our Care Cost Estimator within Find a Doctor helps you determine what a service will cost based on your specific plan's coverage and your current spending status (deductible, coinsurance or full coverage phase).
When you search for procedures*, certain services will show more variance in cost. For example:
- Patient's MRI cost at provider A: $785
Patient's MRI cost at provider B: $1,026 - Patient's colonoscopy cost at provider A: $2,046
Patient's colonoscopy cost at provider B: $2,390
*Out-of-pocket cost varies by plan and person. These are just examples.
Care Cost Estimator
Look up costs for 1,400+ medical procedures and services before getting care to estimate your personal out-of-pocket costs
- 500 new procedures added in 2023
Other consumer protections
No Surprises Act
When you get emergency care or get treated by an out-of-network provider at an in-network hospital or ambulatory surgical center, you are protected from surprise or balance billing.
Transparency in Coverage (TCR)
Health plans are required to make machine-readable files public, including in-network rates negotiated with providers, allowed amounts (historical payments) to out-of-network providers and their billed charges.
Interoperability
Medicare Advantage and Minnesota Health Care Programs members can more easily carry their healthcare information between plans and employers.