Taking The Mystery Out Of Shopping For Health Care

“People should know what things cost in health care,” said Jeanne Pinder, founder and CEO of ClearHealthCosts. “We’re here to help.”

March 5, 2018, PHILADELPHIA – The Philadelphia Inquirer, 6abc Action News (WPVI-TV) and ClearHealthCosts.com have formed a unique content partnership to create Philly Health Costs (www.philly.com/Healthcosts), an in-depth reporting and searchable database initiative focused on one of the biggest issues our nation faces today, the high cost of health care.

The project is underwritten by a grant from The Lenfest Institute for Journalism which supports local journalism collaboration across the Philadelphia news ecosystem. This is The Lenfest Institute’s first grant in support of innovative health care reporting.

The Philadelphia Inquirer and 6abc Action News will work with ClearHealthCosts, a New York-based journalism startup that specializes in health care cost transparency. The project is collecting information about cash or self-pay pricing and consumers’ bills and payments for common health care tests and procedures at providers throughout the Philadelphia area.

With a consumer-friendly online tool located on the Philly Health Costs page of Philly.com (the Inquirer’s online home), consumers can not only compare competitive health care prices gathered by ClearHealthCosts, they can also share anonymously their own experiences about shopping for health care and navigating billing and insurance.

While cost isn’t the only factor to consider when choosing a health care provider, price transparency can provide an opening to further discussions of quality care and competitive consumer benefits.

“Given the critical importance of the cost issue, the Inquirer is eager to join forces with 6abc and ClearHealthCosts to expand the impact and reach of this accountability reporting. Our aim is not only to focus on the myriad of cost inequities, but also be a leading force in identifying potential solutions for the Philadelphia region,”  said Stan Wischnowski, Executive Editor and Senior Vice President of the Philadelphia Media Network, owner of the Inquirer, the Daily News and Philly.com.

“We’re excited to team up with the Inquirer and examine this important issue from a different lens,” said 6abc President & General Manager Bernie Prazenica. “And with this initiative, we hope to provide our viewers and readers with valuable and useful information.”

“People should know what things cost in health care,” said Jeanne Pinder, founder and CEO of ClearHealthCosts. “We’re here to help.”

 

ClearHealthCosts surveyed hundreds of people at Philadelphia-area health providers to collect cash prices for a core selection of common procedures including certain MRI’s, mammograms, colonoscopies, blood tests, eye and dental exams. The searchable database will also provide consumers with the Medicare payment rate for thousands of procedures, important because Medicare is the closest thing to a fixed or benchmark price in the marketplace.

 

To ensure privacy, the health care information and comments consumers provide will appear anonymously in the database, and will never be paired publicly with an email address. The information collected, including comments, may also serve as the basis for articles and reports about health costs.

 

As a public service, this database can be searched without a paid subscription to the Philadelphia Inquirer or Philly.com. To gain full access to the Inquirer stories about local health costs, a paid subscription will help support that in-depth reporting.

 

About Philadelphia Media Network
Philadelphia Media Network, PBC, (PMN) is the owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News, and Philly.com. PMN reaches an average weekly audience of 1.9 million adults*.  The Inquirer and Daily News have the largest and most experienced newsroom in the region and have won a combined 23 Pulitzer Prizes.

*Source:  Scarborough Release 2 2017; Base: Philadelphia DMA

 

About WPVI-TV/6abc

WPVI-TV is the ABC-owned station serving the Delaware and Lehigh Valleys. 6abc Action News is the #1 local news brand in the tri-state, and the undisputed television news leader for more than 35 years.  6abc.com, the official website of Action News, is also the #1 local TV news website in the market.

 

About The Lenfest Institute

The Lenfest Institute for Journalism is a non-profit organization whose sole mission is to develop and support sustainable business models for great local journalism. The Institute was founded in 2016 by cable television entrepreneur H.F. (Gerry) Lenfest.  Lenfest gifted to the Institute an initial endowment of $20 million, which has since been supplemented by other donors, for investment in innovative news initiatives, new technology, and new models for sustainable journalism.  The Institute’s goal is to help transform the news industry in the digital age to ensure that high-quality local journalism remains a cornerstone of our democracy.

About ClearHealthCosts.com

ClearHealthCosts.com is a New York City startup bringing transparency to the health care marketplace by telling people what stuff costs. Using a combination of shoe-leather journalism, database sourcing and curation, crowdsourcing and partnering, ClearHealthCosts.com is revealing the secrets of an opaque marketplace. ClearHealthCosts has partnered with more than a dozen news organizations nationwide, including NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune and WVUE Fox 8 Live in New Orleans; WLRN public radio in Miami; WUSF public radio in Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla.; KQED public radio in San Francisco; KPCC public radio in Los Angeles; WNYC public radio in New York, and others.

 

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

 

Amy Buckman
Mgr. PR & Special Events
Philadelphia Media Network

abuckman@philly.com

215-854-5790
267-615-3841

Mike Monsell
VP & Dir. Of Audience Development

WPVI-TV/6abc

mike.monsell@abc.com

215-460-4939

Jeanne Pinder
Founder and CEO
ClearHealthCosts

jeanne@clearhealthcosts.com

914-450-9499

Jeanne Pinder

Founder, CEO, clearhealthcosts.com
m. 914.450.9499
@chcosts
One of the “benevolent geniuses” working to fix health care.
Here’s a 5-minute laugh: My HealthFoo Ignite on how U.S. health care system is like the U.S.S.R.