Patients in Utah and Arizona on Original Medicare and with Internet access can view and manage their own individual claims electronically starting this January.

The pilot program is part of a general operations upgrade announced by Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt during a trip to Salt Lake City this past spring to make the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) more electronically accessible. It also will give those covered by the huge, government-insurance plans more power in managing their own health.

Ultimately, the pilot program is designed to evaluate how well CMS is meeting the needs of those covered by Medicare and will help determine for certain if, as is hoped, personal monitoring will improve overall health outcomes and lower costs — the same goals of health-care system improvement strategies now being developed in Utah and several other states.

Giving people more help and thereby more responsibility for their own health-care decisions is central to the pilot plan. Beneficiaries in the two states will sign up for one of the selected commercial personal health record management tools, and CMS will transfer up to two years of a person's claims activity into the individual's personal data account. Private e-record management vendors were sent letters Friday notifying them of the pilot program and soliciting possible data-management options they could offer beneficiaries.

Leavitt said although a new administration will be in Washington come January, and his term as secretary will end before the program begins, such steps making the most use of technology and empowering individuals is a given and must get under way now, no matter the coming changes in personnel next year. Getting a handle on the rampant price increases and making health care more transparent to users is a major concern of states and the federal government. Utah has a special legislative task force considering a number of alterations and has begun drafting legislation initiating changes to enhance data access and management.

Both federal and state governments are betting that giving people more electronic access will ultimately make all facets of the health-care system more transparent to the public and easier for individuals to take more responsibility in their health-care decisions.

"This is a first, but exciting, step forward for Medicare," Leavitt said last week. "We believe that it will provide information and tools that will empower consumers to manage their health and more importantly tailor their plans to their individual needs."