Health-Insurance Providers Begin Publishing Prices for Medical Care

Insurers and employers began publicly posting the prices they pay for healthcare services ranging from doctor visits to lab tests, hugely expanding a federally mandated effort to unveil the long-secret rates.

The new data is coming in the form of massive, machine-readable digital files, typically in formats not easily accessible to consumers, posted mostly on insurers’ websites. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services set a deadline of July 1 for the data to be released, with some big insurers releasing data by the early morning hours Friday, including Elevance Health Inc.’s Anthem, Cigna Corp. and Humana Inc., according to Turquoise Health Co., a company compiling the data.