HealthPrices.Org is a free healthcare price transparency tool developed by the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI), a non-profit, independent research organization. Relaunched from its predecessor, Guroo, the tool is designed to make the price of health care easy to understand and accessible to everyone.
Product Overview & Key Benefits
The tool utilizes a massive dataset of billions of health care claims, representing nearly 100 million people across all 50 states and D.C., including both commercial multi-payer claims and Traditional Medicare data.
It allows consumers to look up and compare average prices for hundreds of the most commonly used health care services—including nearly 400 bundles of services—in their local metropolitan area. The price estimates are based on actual historical payments to hospitals and providers, including the portion paid by the insurer and the patient's out-of-pocket costs (deductible, copay, coinsurance).
Main Features and Capabilities
- Price Comparison Tool: Compares the average price of a service in a user's area to the national average and to what Medicare pays.
- Bundled Service Pricing: Estimates include all the associated and ancillary services commonly billed with a particular procedure (e.g., a knee replacement bundle includes related care like physical therapy).
- Extensive Service Coverage: Compares prices for hundreds of common services, including 56 of the 70 CMS Shoppable Services and 278 of the initial 500 TiC services.
- Geographic Price Variation: Illustrates how prices for the same service vary across the country.
Target Users and Use Cases
Primary users are consumers/patients seeking to prepare for costs before receiving care and to benchmark their Explanation of Benefits (EOB). The data is also valuable for employers, purchasers, policymakers, and researchers looking to understand typical rates for common health care services and to examine price variation. The data is de-identified and HIPAA compliant, and while the public website is for personal, non-commercial use, HCCI licenses its underlying data for non-commercial research.
