There's a lot of payer price transparency data out there. So much that it would take 76,104 decades to count up all the data available in machine-readable files, according to transparency data startup Turquoise Health.
Turquoise rounded up the current state of price transparency data in its 2022 "Price Transparency Data Year in Review."
Hospitals have been required to post their data since January 2021, and payers were required to post data in machine-readable files by July 1, 2022.
Four stats that show the sheer size of price transparency data:
- There is around 630 terabytes of payer data online, compared to hospitals' 3 terabytes. To visualize the difference, Turquoise suggests thinking of hospital data as a bowling pin, and payer data as a sequoia tree.
- There are 78 billion payer price records available. In miles, this number would stretch from Earth to Neptune and back 14 times.
- CMS requires machine readable files to be published in a certain format, but these file sizes can vary greatly, some as much as 50 to 100 times.
- Since July 1, Turquoise has collected price data from 163 payers.
Read the full year-in-review here.