Happy New Year!  Spending wisely for health care services is definitely a priority in 2009 and with a little knowledge; you can easily save hundreds –even thousands of dollars.   To get you started, here are some excellent tips on how you can save money on routine health care services. 

Affordable Medical Care Services

Federally-funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), there are thousands of health centers around the U.S. that provide low-cost health care to people based on financial need. You pay what you can afford, based on your income. For more information visit www.findahealthcenter.hrsa.gov, or you can call (888) 275-4772.

Hill-Burton facilities: There are around 200 Hill-Burton health care facilities around the country that offer free or reduced-cost health care for people that cannot afford to pay for services.  To locate a facility or to see if you qualify, visit www.hrsa.gov/hillburton or call 800-638-0742.

Free clinics: These are privately funded, non-profit, community-based clinics that typically provide care for common illnesses and injuries to those in need, at little or no cost. There are around 1,000 free clinics nationwide. To locate one in your area, call your local hospital or visit www.freemedicalcamps.com for more information.

Indian Health Service (IHS): A government agency within the Department of Health and Human Service, IHS provides free medical care to American Indians and Alaska Natives in 35 states. Visit www.ihs.gov for more information.

Remote Area Medical: A non-profit, charitable organization that provides free health, dental and eye care to uninsured or underinsured people in remote areas of Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia but may be expanding to other states in the future. Visit www.ramusa.org or call (865) 579-1530.

Making Sense Out of Existing Data

Did you know that health care price data exists today --it's just not available to the public. I am passionate about bringing consumerism to health care, and dedicated to promoting price transparency.  My goal is to make sense of the existing price data to help consumers make informed choices. 

For CONSUMERS

• Hunting down true out-of-pocket expenses for health care services – in advance, can be frustrating.  Unless you are an experienced data minter, this type of hunting can be intimidating and time-consuming.  If you are uninsured, under-insured, looking for an out-of-network provider, or have a high-deductible health plan, you are probably trying to make cost-effective choices before purchasing health care services.  And you are probably interested in knowing your true out of pocket cost for the services BEFORE you visit the provider.    That’s just being a good consumer.  You need useful and relevant tools to help you make good choices.

For INSURERS

• You are the keeper of all the claims data for your members.  You know exactly the negotiated (contracted) price for every provider, for every service, for every different insurance plan you offer.  You also know how much of a member’s deductible has been met.  You have databases of prices paid for every service for every member and could make life a lot easier for your members and possibly change health care if you agreed to share this data to make it publically available.  Yet you insist on keeping this data a secret. 

For OUTOFPOCKET.COM

• I am inviting consumers to post/share prices they paid in the directory.   Everyone wants to look up prices, but very few are willing to take a minute to post/share their prices.  We could wait years for legislation to pass, insurers to agree to make prices public, or we could do something today.  Consumers are invited (and encouraged!) to collaborate and share prices they paid on OutofPocket.com.  If enough consumers participate and share prices, consumers collectively will create a very powerful directory of true out-of-pocket prices.

For PROVIDERS

• You have an opportunity to transform health care as we know it today.  You can help promote transparency by publishing your prices for services.   Why not let consumers know up front what your services will cost them?  OutofPocket.com invites you to include your prices/services in the directory - free of charge.  This not only promotes your practice, but also helps consumers understand what they will be required to pay for services at your facility.

Imagine how easy it would be to comparison shop for health care services if relevant data was available. If consumers had access to true healthcare price data, comparison shopping for health care services could be a lot like your experience shopping for a book on Amazon.com, booking a vacation on Travelocity.com or purchasing an item on eBay.com. 

Tell a friend about OutofPocket.com and be sure to add prices you paid for health care services to this directory.   Not only will you be sharing data, but you will be contributing to a powerful directory of prices that will help promote more affordable health care services.

Doctor Review Websites

The November 28 edition of Slate.com included an interesting article by Dr. Kent Sepkowitz.  His article sheds some light on all the doctor rating websites available today.  Dr. Sepkowitz spent many hours reviewing doctor rating tools, including free sites and sites that require subscriptions or fees to obtain this information.  His conclusion:  the online doctor rating tools are very lean, content-free and lack any useful information. 

Last month I posted a blog about finding the best value (understanding the quality side of health care in addition to finding the best cost) and listed 25 different websites that offer doctor ratings.  I neglected to mention that I never use these doctor rating sites because they are not useful.   They lack meaningful data.  All of them.  Instead, I ask my doctors, family, friends, and community for their personal recommendations.  Then I go online and start to research the doctor’s certifications in more detail using many websites, tools and blogs to read other patient’s comments and experiences.  Since this is user generated content, you need to be able to read between the lines.  Sometimes people just have a bad day and they should skip writing reviews online until they have 24 hours to think about what they want to write and their mood stabilizes.

Price Transparency Tools

I am dedicated to promoting price transparency in health care.  This is what I do and that’s why I launched OutofPocket.com almost two years ago.  If I can help consumers make more informed and cost-effective choices before visiting a provider, then I have accomplished my mission.   When consumers start making more informed choices, become active participants in their own health care and demand greater transparency  --- good things result including lower costs, more innovation, more choices and improved access to medical care.
 
OutofPocket.com is not the only price transparency tool available.  Dozens of others are out there and I research all the new tools to evaluate their usefulness so I can talk about these tools in my next presentation.  Unfortunately, the price transparency tools seem to have the same disease as the doctor rating tools.  Each has some amount of data, but not enough to be meaningful and comprehensive.  Wouldn’t it be interesting if these tools collaborated and consolidated their data to produce a robust tool where shopping for routine health care servcies would be comparable to the experience of shopping for items using eBay or Amazon.com, where you can easily compare quality, prices and recommendations?

Here is the short list of 20 price transparency tools.  If you would like my comprehensive list and review of each tool, please send me a note and I’d be happy to forward this information to you.

Alijor
AMA CPT Lookup Tool
Carol
CostHelper
DoctorPricing
HealthcareBlueBook
HealthPricer
HospitalVictims
MainStreet Medica
MedcareCompare
MyHealthScore
MyMedical Costs
MyRegence
OutofPocket
PatientCare
RemakeHealth
Spectrum Health
UCompreHealthCare
USA Healthcare Costs
Vimo