Executive Editor Kevin Brasler Frequency Semiannually Year founded 1974 (1974) | Categories Consumer advocacy Founder Robert Krughoff | |
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Publisher Center for the Study of Services | ||
Consumers' Checkbook/Center for the Study of Services (stylized as Consumers’ CHECKBOOK) is an independent, nonprofit consumer organization. It was founded in 1974. in order to provide survey information to consumers about vendors and service providers. There are both print and online versions in the Boston, Chicago, Delaware Valley, Puget Sound, San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose, Twin Cities, and Washington, D.C., areas.
Contents
Company overview
Consumers' Checkbook and Center for the Study of Services were founded by company President Robert Krughoff after he had a bad auto repair experience. In response he founded the publication as a not-for-profit venue for rating professionals in fields including mechanics and plumbers. Over time the publication came to also review other professions and services, like physicians. As a part of the intention to provide unbiased information the publication does not carry advertising, but does charge a subscription fee.
The first issue of Consumers' Checkbook came out in 1974. The ratings are based on items including surveys of consumers, reports from undercover shoppers, expert surveys, the number of consumer agency complaints against a company or service provider, and an analysis of publicly available databases. The first publication only covered the Washington DC area. In 1982, its first magazine for another city began, focusing on the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2003 the company expanded to include publications for Seattle-Tacoma, the Twin Cities, Chicago, the Delaware Valley, and Boston.
Medicare claims data and lawsuit
In 2006, under the Freedom of Information Act, Consumers' Checkbook sued the United States Department of Health and Human Services for records of claims filed by physicians under Medicare. Checkbook intended to use these claims to report the volume of experience each doctor had with various high-risk procedures. HHS held the belief that the release of such data enabled the user to identify individual physicians, and therefore was prohibited from doing so. Checkbook won the case in the Federal District Court, but the ruling was reversed in the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court declined to take the case. Checkbook has continued to push for the release of Medicare data since losing the case.
Car Bargains
Since 1990, Consumers' Checkbook has also operated the car-buying and -leasing services, CarBargains and LeaseWise. The service pursues bids on the selected car model from five local dealers, asking them to compete against one another. That same year Checkbook began publishing the biannual publications CarDeals, a newsletter comparing car prices and financing options.
Recognition
Checkbook has won the National Press Club's First Place Award for Excellence in Consumer Journalism, and in 2000 was honored, with the Esther Peterson Consumer Service Award. The company has also received first place in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Plan Choice Challenge.