In September, a New York nonprofit healthcare organization enabled patients to go online to research the cost of healthcare services before they receive treatment. And so far New Yorkers are giving the site some pretty heavy use.

Fair Health Inc., a not-for-profit consumer healthcare research organization based in New York, has developed and launched YouCanPlanForThis.org, a new website that gives New York consumers access to accurate medical and dental costs and other educational resources so they can plan financially for a procedure or episode of care.

Baby Boomers and consumers over age 65 are the biggest combined group of users at 52.1%, Fair Health says. “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,” says Fair Health president Robin Gelburd.

By entering their ZIP code in the cost-lookup search engine New Yorkers can estimate their medical or dental expenses for particular procedures in their areas. The search engine—which is built on top of a database with 24 billion metrics culled over time from health insurer claims data for New York—lets users set filters to take into account whether they are insured or uninsured—and if insured, whether they are staying in network or going out of network.

Patients with high-deductible health plans can used the search engine to search for “allowed amounts,” which are based on average negotiated in-network rates, to estimate how much they will have to pay their in-network providers for care before they meet their deductibles. By comparing the average negotiated in-network amount with providers’ typical billed charges on the site, patients also can decide whether to initiate discussions with out-of-network healthcare providers about the costs of their care, Fair Health says.

YouCanPlanForThis.org allows patients to research the total and itemized costs of 25 common “bundles” or episodes of care that involve multiple procedures related to a single medical condition, such as diabetes, or a planned procedure, such as a hip replacement, Fair Health says. For 100 frequently performed procedures, YouCanPlanForThis.org features provider listings with information about providers’ practices, hospital affiliations and prices.

Specific website use metrics include:

• Age: The distribution of age groups visiting the site was 18-24 (12.4%), 25-34 (13.6%),  35-44 (9.7%), 45-54—(12.2%), 55-64 (18.9%) and 65 and older (33.3%).
• Gender: women at 63.1% and men at 36.9%.
• Mobile: Of visitors to the site, 74.5% used mobile devices. Tablets accounted for 18.7% and desktops 6.78%.
• Most used search terms: MRI, colonoscopy, dermatological, physical therapy and emergency, root canal, implant, orthodontic, extraction and crown.

This month Fair Health will launch the second phase of the YouCanPlanForThis.org website with quality metrics and pricing information for common outpatient procedures performed in hospitals in four geographic regions in the state.

“YouCanPlanForThis.org is appealing to all groups of New Yorkers, Gelburd says.

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