New search website launches to help New Mexicans find health care

SANTA FE — A new website will allow New Mexicans to search for quality, affordable health care near them.

It was announced last month that apcd.doh.nm.gov is the new website people can use to find health care that’s best for them.

“This user-friendly health care transparency website gives New Mexicans a powerful tool to find the highest-quality, most affordable health care for their families, which is more urgent than ever during this period of rapidly rising prices,” Kristina Fisher, associate director of Think New Mexico said.

Fisher is on the advisory committee that assisted the Department of Health with the implementation of the website.

According to a release, creating the website was a multi-year effort because in order to gather the necessary data, the state had to first build an All Payer Claims Database (APCD), which collects information about the actual prices paid for medical procedures. Think New Mexico advocated for the development of the state’s APCD, and its implementation this year makes New Mexico the 24th state with an APCD.

“The website, which can be found at apcd.doh.nm.gov, allows New Mexicans to compare average prices and quality metrics for common, non-emergency procedures at each of the state’s 44 hospitals,” it reads in a release.

The new health care transparency website is the culmination of legislation enacted in 2015. The legislation was based on recommendations from Think New Mexico’s 2014 policy report, “Making Health Care More Affordable.” The legislation, which passed both the House and Senate unanimously, reflects a bipartisan compromise that was supported by the New Mexico Department of Health, the New Mexico Hospital Association, Think New Mexico, the AARP, the Foundation for Open Government, the League of Women Voters, the Con Alma Health Foundation, the national organization Costs of Care, and leading doctors across New Mexico, among others.

“The user-friendly website allows New Mexicans to search by procedure, such as a colonoscopy, and see the average prices paid for that procedure at nearby health care providers. New Mexicans can also look up their local provider by name and find a list of common procedures performed at that facility, along with their average prices,” it reads.

Along with average prices, the website also includes quality ratings for all the health care facilities for which those ratings are available. The quality ratings reflect both patient surveys about the care they received at that facility, as well as factors such as rates of excess readmissions and hospital-acquired infections.

In its 2024 report, Think New Mexico noted that at least 19 other states, including Colorado, Arizona, and Utah, have already created health care transparency websites. Similarly, states that publicly post health care quality data, like rates of hospital-acquired infections and readmissions, have seen hospitals compete to improve quality.