Healthcare Bluebook

History

Healthcare Bluebook was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Healthcare Bluebook is owned by CareOperative LLC. CareOperative LLC provides information, tools and processes that enable fair, upfront pricing for healthcare services and products.

Services

The company works with consumers, employers and providers of health care services to develop tools that advance their mission of fair, upfront pricing and quality ratings in healthcare.

Healthcare Consumers

Consumers may access all of the company’s services for free. The pricing tool allows consumers to look up the fair cash price for thousands of services including in-patient surgery, outpatient surgery, physician visits, diagnostic and laboratory tests, prescription medications, cosmetic surgery and dentistry. The website also provides a practical guide to healthcare consumerism and tools for negotiating and documenting provider fees.

Employers

The company provides a customized version of their website for employers. The employer service supports implementation and management of Consumer Directed Health Plans (CDHP), High Deductible Health Plans and other consumer oriented benefit designs.

Healthcare Providers

The company invites healthcare providers to participate in their service by providing cash prices for healthcare services that can be used by consumers.

The Need for Healthcare Price Transparency

A 2007 study by National Center for Policy Analysis outlined a case for improved healthcare quality and lower cost resulting from increased patient consumerism. The study found that the keys to realizing the value of consumerism are two-fold. First, patients need to act as consumers since they are paying a larger out-of-pocket proportion of their healthcare. Second, consumers must have access to pricing information from providers before the service is rendered.

Americans are paying more out of pocket for their healthcare services. According to the US Census Bureau, in 2007 there were 45.7 million uninsured Americans. Out of pocket costs for the 177 million Americans with employer sponsored insurance have also increased. A 2008 Mercer study reports that median healthcare deductibles for the working insured have increased from $500 to $1,000 between 2007 and 2008. A similar Hewitt Associates analysis also reports overall out of pocket healthcare expenses have risen from $1,576 to $1,707 over the same period.

Despite the fact that out of pocket costs are rising, the promise of true consumerism has been stymied by the lack of free, accurate and easily accessible tools that enable patients to effectively shop for the best provider price. The lack of price information is highlighted by the NCPA study:

In most markets, prices and quality indicators are transparent - clear and readily available to consumers. Health care is different: Prices are difficult to obtain and often meaningless when they are disclosed. Patients who ask for price information are likely to be disappointed. Typically, neither the hospital nor the doctor will know the cost until the procedure is completed.

The company’s core services seek to address the key deficiencies in healthcare price transparency by providing tools that address the healthcare price knowledge gap.