ClearHealthCosts Overview: Demystifying Healthcare Prices

ClearHealthCosts is a service that aims to empower consumers by providing transparency in healthcare pricing, allowing consumers to compare prices of medical procedures and services from different healthcare providers in their area.

What is ClearHealthCosts?

The service collects and displays healthcare pricing data from various sources, including providers, patients and databases, to provide accurate and up-to-date pricing information.

ClearHealthCosts also supplies in-depth, actionable news coverage, in the form of consumer-friendly investigations of health costs, coupled with service journalism with broad posts like “How to find out what stuff costs in healthcare” and “How much does Medicare cost” to specifics such as “How much does a colonoscopy cost,“ or “How much does a sleep study cost.” Their service journalism includes advice on topics ranging from how to argue a bill effectively to how to read an explanation of benefits. 

Disclaimer: Because we admire their mission, Honest Policy was an early investor, supporter, and code contributor to ClearHealthCosts.

History and Partnerships

The service was launched in 2011 in New York City by Jeanne Pinder, who had worked for The New York Times for almost 25 years, and who was frustrated by the lack of transparency and consistency in healthcare pricing. It has since expanded to other cities across the United States, including Philadelphia, Los Angeles, New Orleans, San Francisco and others.

ClearHealthCosts has had partnerships with various media outlets, including CBS News; WNYC/Gothamist in New York; WVUE Fox 8 Live and NOLA.com I The Times-Picayune in New Orleans; The Philadelphia Inquirer; and other news outlets. These partnerships help promote the service and provide consumers with valuable information about healthcare pricing.

They have shared honors for the nation’s top network public service journalism project in their partnership with CBS News, as well as winning numerous other journalism prizes.

How does ClearHealthCosts work?

ClearHealthCosts collects and analyzes data from various sources to provide consumers with pricing information for medical procedures and services. The service uses reporting, crowdsourcing, and data mining to gather information on healthcare pricing and to write in-depth articles on how people can navigate the healthcare system.

Consumers can access ClearHealthCosts through its website, which allows them to search for the prices of medical procedures and services in their area, contribute their own prices to help build the database, and learn how to get the care they need at a price they can afford. The website provides a searchable database of cash prices for almost every medical procedure and service available.

ClearHealthCosts' tool allows users to compare prices in their geographic area and see the providers who offer those prices. In the New York City metro area (where their data is robust), while prices are visible for free comparison, specific providers are only visible via payment of $20-25 per procedure.

What are the benefits of ClearHealthCosts?

By providing transparency in healthcare pricing, the service empowers consumers to make informed decisions about their healthcare. This can help consumers to save money on medical procedures and services; to find providers who offer high-quality care at a reasonable price; and to navigate the confusing and complicated U.S. healthcare system.

In addition, ClearHealthCosts helps to promote competition in the healthcare industry by providing consumers with information on the prices of medical procedures and services from different providers. This can help to drive down healthcare costs and improve the quality of care.

Other noteworthy details

ClearHealthCosts has won grants for its work from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation; the Lenfest Foundation; the Tow-Knight Center at the Craig Newmark City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism; the International Women’s Media Foundation (Ford Foundation funding); and J-Lab at American University (McCormack Foundation funding. Other funding came via partners from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. 

Pinder was a fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, doing a white paper about crowdsourcing. Her TED talk has surpassed 2 million views.