Profit data to be followed by charge data

Just days after a South Carolina health agency published data about hospital profits, the director says his agency will publish various charges for procedures and how they compare hospital-to-hospital. This week the Department of Health and Human Services placed online (www.schealthdata.org) data that show for 2013 South Carolina hospitals combined made profits of $1.1 billion. Oconee Medical Center at Seneca was one of 60 hospitals reporting profits. Just how much, however, varied depending on whose figures you look at. Seventeen South Carolina hospitals lost money last year. Going forward Tony Keck, director of DHHS, said, “One of the things we’ll be doing in the next several weeks or a month to two is publishing data on actual prices of procedures in hospitals throughout South Carolina and how they vary.” Keck believes that’s something savvy consumers will appreciate.