New Healthcare Planning Site Attracts Wide Range of New Yorkers

NEW YORK, Feb. 7, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Men and women of all age groups have been visiting YouCanPlanForThis.org, a free website created by independent nonprofit FAIR Health that enables New York State residents to plan their healthcare costs. This preliminary evidence of the site's broad appeal comes from FAIR Health analytics.

Since the website's launch on September 12, 2017 through January 23, 2018, adults across the age spectrum from 18 to 65 and older used the site. Baby boomers (defined by the US Census Bureau as currently 54-72) were a large constituency, with about half of the site's visitors aged 55 and older. The other half of visitors ranged in age from 18 to 54. Millennials (defined by the Census Bureau as currently 18-36) were over a quarter of all site visitors.

Significantly, both women and men visited the site. Consistent with focus groups FAIR Health has conducted showing that women are often healthcare decision makers and caregivers, the majority of visitors were women, but men also were well represented.

Almost 75 percent of visitors used mobile devices to access the site, and 25 percent of visitors arrived via social media—suggesting the growing power of both mobile devices and social media in directing people to the healthcare resources they need. "MRI" and "root canal" were, respectively, the top medical and dental terms searched.

"We are excited that YouCanPlanForThis.org is appealing to all groups of New Yorkers," said FAIR Health President Robin Gelburd. "This shows the public's desire for independent, reliable healthcare cost data and understandable health insurance information to help them plan for medical and dental expenses. We hope that our ground-breaking New York website, which was funded in part with the generous support of the New York State Health Foundation, will serve as a prototype for other states looking to offer price transparency tools for their constituents."

With the site's cost lookup tools, which are powered by FAIR Health's billions of private healthcare claims records, consumers can estimate in-network and out of-network costs for thousands of medical procedures in their geographic areas, and out-of-network costs for dental procedures, with estimated in-network costs for dental procedures due to be launched later this year. They also can research total and itemized costs of 25 common "episodes of care" or medical bundles. In addition, they can access individual provider listings for 100 frequently performed procedures in the state, including information about providers' practices and prices. A rich educational curriculum offers articles on insurance basics, a glossary, videos, resource links and information on healthcare quality measures.

On February 1, 2018, FAIR Health launched the second phase of YouCanPlanForThis.org, featuring hospital-specific pricing for 20 common outpatient procedures with specified quality metrics for hospitals in four New York regions: Albany, Buffalo, Syracuse and Westchester.

Vital statistics about visitors to the site include:

• Age: The distribution of age groups visiting the site was:
• 18-24—12.40 percent
• 25-34—13.58 percent
• 35-44—9.65 percent
• 45-54—12.21 percent
• 55-64—18.90 percent
• 65 and older—33.25 percent
  
  
• Gender: At 63.09 percent of visitors, women predominated; the other 36.91 percent were men.
  
  
• Top terms searched (from most to least common):
• Medical: MRI, colonoscopy, dermatological, physical therapy, emergency
• Dental: root canal, implant, orthodontic, extraction, crown
  
  
• Technology: Of visitors to the site, the vast majority—74.52 percent—used mobile devices. Tablets accounted for 18.71 percent of traffic, desktops 6.77 percent.
  
  
• Top channels of acquisition: Largely due to a robust statewide educational campaign, 65 percent of visitors came to the site through a direct web search for the site, while 25 percent visited the site through a link on social media. Referrals triggered by media mentions about the site accounted for most of the remaining traffic.

YouCanPlanForThis.org was singled out last fall as an "excellent consumer website" in the Altarum and Catalyst for Payment Reform's Price Transparency & Physician Quality Report Card 2017.

Encouraged by the success of New York's YouCanPlanForThis.org, which was based on FAIR Health's award-winning national consumer site, fairhealthconsumer.org, other states have approached FAIR Health with interest in how they can adapt it for their constituents.

To learn how YouCanPlanForThis.org can help consumers plan for healthcare expenses, register for the free one-hour webcast FAIR Health will be hosting on March 1.

For a visual look at the statistics about YouCanPlanForThis.org, see the infographic above.

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About FAIR Health
FAIR Health is a national, independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing transparency to healthcare costs and health insurance information through data products, consumer resources and health systems research support. FAIR Health possesses the nation's largest collection of private healthcare claims data, which includes over 25 billion claim records contributed by payors and administrators who insure or process claims for private insurance plans covering more than 150 million individuals. FAIR Health also holds separate data representing the experience of more than 55 million individuals enrolled in Medicare. Certified by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) as a Qualified Entity, FAIR Health receives all of Medicare Parts A, B and D claims data for use in nationwide transparency efforts. FAIR Health licenses its privately billed data and data products—including benchmark modules, data visualizations, custom analytics, episodes of care analytics and market indices—to commercial insurers and self-insurers, employers, hospitals and healthcare systems, government agencies, researchers and others. FAIR Health has earned HITRUST CSF and Service Organization Controls (SOC 2) certifications by meeting the rigorous data security standards of those organizations. As a testament to the reliability and objectivity of FAIR Health data, the data have been incorporated in statutes and regulations around the country and designated as the official, neutral data source for a variety of state health programs, including workers' compensation and personal injury protection (PIP) programs. FAIR Health data serve as an official reference point in support of certain state balance billing laws that protect consumers against bills for surprise out-of-network and emergency services. FAIR Health also uses its database to power a free consumer website available in English and Spanish and an English/Spanish mobile app, which enable consumers to estimate and plan their healthcare expenditures and offer a rich educational platform on health insurance. The website has been honored by the White House Summit on Smart Disclosure, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), URAC, the eHealthcare Leadership Awards, appPicker, Employee Benefit News and Kiplinger's Personal Finance. FAIR Health also is named a top resource for patients in Elisabeth Rosenthal's book, An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back. For more information on FAIR Health, visit fairhealth.org.

Contact:
Dean Sicoli
Executive Director of Communications and Public Relations
FAIR Health
646-664-1645
[email protected]

SOURCE FAIR Health