title: In defense of data.
abstract: Getting better health care information into the hands of people who need it is our business at Ingenix. Our company has been in the news as a result of the New York attorney general's investigation into the healthcare industry's use of actual physician billed charge data to determine a "reasonable and customary" amount to pay a physician when consumers choose doctors outside their health plan's network of care providers. We believe that the issue of how to calculate out-of-network charges and reimbursement is an important one, but we also believe that it is a small part of a larger issue: improving the healthcare system by improving the quality and quantity of information available to its participants.
authors.affiliation: UnitedHealth Group's Ingenix, USA.
authors.forename: Andy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Slavitt
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ostler