Cost Plus Wellness, from public data
Cost Plus Wellness lets a self-funded employer contract directly with surgery centers and physician groups at a published rate. The two questions raised about it, quality and reach beyond Texas, are both answerable from federal data. This page shows what is coming and from which source.
"Simple and direct, not convoluted and opaque."
Mark Cuban, on the Cost Plus Wellness modelWhy this half of the data
A published contract tells an employer the rate. It does not tell them whether the provider is any good, or what their current carrier already pays that same provider, or who else to contract with in the next state. Those three gaps are exactly what public health care data answers.
The work below is built the same way as the drug analyses: one question each, federal sources named, the data downloadable, the method open. It publishes on the site first, as public work, on the same open terms Cost Plus uses for its own contracts.
A quality column for every published contract
Cost Plus Wellness publishes the contract but not a way to check the provider. This adds one: accreditation and patient experience for each surgery center, quality scores for each physician group, federal and state exclusion and license status, and industry payments. One record per provider, each figure linked to its federal source, ready to sit beside the published contract.
What the insurer already pays those same providers
For each Texas provider that has published a Cost Plus contract, the rate its incumbent carrier publishes for the same service, the Medicare allowed amount beside it, and how much of what that provider actually does has no published rate at all. The comparison an employer needs to judge a direct contract, made only from rates the provider genuinely bills.
The contracting map for a new state
The public answer to "beyond Texas." For any state, which physicians bill under which entity, the kind of entity, its specialty mix, and the carriers it already contracts with. A list of groups to call, built before anyone has made a call.
Tell us the state, or the question
If the state you want mapped is not Texas, or the provider question you want answered is not here, write and say so. Each of these is a page, not a pitch.