SALT LAKE CITY -- When planning for a baby, you have to consider the financial cost, and these days there’s a website that can give you some real numbers.
Planning involves a lot of questions, like how much should we save? What do hospitals charge for certain services, and which hospitals have the most-qualified doctors?
Utahhealthscape.org hopes to provide families with the answers to those questions and more.
“We’re trying to give them a nice look using national data, using state data, but giving them something that’s easier to understand, to use to compare,” said Sarah Woolsey, the director of Health Insight Utah.
You can find maternity care costs sorted by hospital facilities in Utah and learn more about the quality of care available.
Woolsey said, “Now people can actually look at it and say, ‘How much does it cost to have a baby in Utah, if I have a vaginal delivery or a cesarean delivery?”
Woolsey said the tools are available to all.
“It may be people looking at it who aren’t even having babies, but they’re sort of interested, and wonder: How does this compare?”
The website partnered with hospitals, state agencies and the community to provide a database that people can pull from to make an informed decision.
Woolsey said they think making more information available, "will empower consumers to ask more questions, to have more dialogue with their physicians, to see what really fits for them to get their care, and to reinforce the good decisions they're already making."
The website is constantly changing, and they plan to make other medical conditions accessible down the road. Click here for details.
