chcc kdeck
TRANSCRIPT
Health costs are out of control. It’s killing America.
Source: Consumer Reports
The problem
• No one knows health costs in advance• Prices for same procedure vary 10x in
the same locale• Increasingly costs are paid directly by the
patient-consumer (but the patient-consumer still doesn’t know costs)
• It’s a $2.7 trillion industry, and it’s completely opaque.
Examples from our reporting
• An MRI: $350 or $2,300?• A CBC blood test: $16 or $117?• A walk-in clinic visit: $88 or $500?• A mammogram: $50 or $869?• (Yes, these are all real.)
Our Solution
• We’re building the best online source for health-care prices.
• Tools: Reporting. Sourcing and curation of databases. Crowdsourcing (lets people easily share the price of health care). Partnering.
• It’s the last big opaque marketplace. It’s ripe for disruption.
Markets seek transparency
• Airline ticket sales, real estate, car sales – all changed with transparency
• Insurance companies are devising transparency tools, but their business thrives on consumer opacity
• Health Savings Accounts (you spend less, you keep more)
• Now suddenly: Obamacare is here, and people are horrified about the prices.
The customer
• Women: They make most health-care decisions• High-deductible insureds (15 million and growing fast)• Uninsured (51 million) including 20- and 30-
somethings, creative classes • People who are insured, but with high copays• People facing rising out-of-pocket costs—rising
number of self-insured employers choosing less expensive plans (putting more of the costs on employees)
• People going out of network, out of pocket• People wanting to be informed about costs
Our sweet spot
Women in their 20’s and 30’s. Many are uninsured, and they use health care for reproductive matters, while their male peers do not.
These women are upset (about the price of their birth-control pills, among other things).
They like to share. They’re social.They want to talk about this problem, and share
their solutions. They’re not enthusiastic about the value
proposition for health insurance.
Business model• Business to business: Licensing our information. Consulting,
white-label products tailored to a business, union, trade group, nonprofit wanting to cut health spending. Repackaging our information by customer demand.
• Business to consumer: Our own site: Sponsorships, advertising (results pages), premium listings, from providers wanting access to cash-paying customers. Walk-in clinics, big-box stores with generic drug plans, women’s health clinics, other providers. Freemium subscription, e.g. $0.99 or $1.99 @ mo., autorenew. Events. Monetizing audience with anonymized consumer info via online focus groups.
The landscape
• Regardless of the election, politics etc., the marketplace is talking: consumers will be paying more for health care.
• Many entities in the marketplace profit from opacity and secrecy. But the Web doesn’t like opacity and secrecy.
• Obamacare is here. People are horrified about the prices. Gradually….and then suddenly, prices will become known. Consumers are starting to feel empowered. We can facilitate that.
Where are we now?
• $54k in grant funding (Tow-Knight Foundation, International Women’s Media Foundation, McCormick Foundation), modest ($75k) friends funding
• Our reported price lists (10x price variations)• Our beta – and our Lessons Learned. • Just relaunched Web site in in a highly interactive way• New York demos are bringing market validation and
attention (New York Tech Meetup demo) just as Time magazine, the NYTimes, and others are newly noticing the prices.
What’s next?• We’re raising a friends/family round in the next 8-12 months• Collecting more data (new cities: NYC, SF, LA, etc.)• Staff up (1 business person, 1 product person, ½ marketing
person)• Adding features as we iterate• Choosing partners carefully (2 news organizations want to
license our data, one state government, 3 patient groups, one consumer-serving nonprofit, one union have expressed interest)
• Advertising/sponsorships in the making
National Strategy
• In talks with two big news groups; other intros in train
• Adding data sets in cities/locales as business opportunities drive up.
• We’re seeing deep interest in custom pricing surveys.• We’re mobile as a mobile web site, not an app—and
37 percent of our traffic is mobile.• Our crowdsourcing experience with our local NPR
affiliate was a huge success; 400 shares.
Our relaunch …. In progress, as we add new features!
Props for CHC--“Phenomenal!... Jeanne is pioneering what I like to call the ‘Travelocity of health services’ field.” –
Todd Park, CTO of US (ex-CTO, Health & Human Services)--The “most impressive presentation of the night came from Jeanne Pinder, the founder and CEO of
clearhealthcosts, a startup dedicted to increasing the transparency of the healthcare industry.” – Betabeat, The New York Observer, 8-22-12
--Our crowd-sourced birth control pill price lists and maps featured on the Rachel Maddow blog--”great set of demos at #NYTM: @chcosts @Docracy@brewsterapp @divide @ConditionOne
especially” (esther dyson tweeted us!)--”This is one of the most useful websites I have seen in years. Great job @chcosts. #NYTM
ow.ly/dDNi6”--"ClearHealthCosts is using the wisdom of the crowds to shine a light into the health industry's darkest
corners.“ – Mark Potts, co-founder, Washingtonpost.com and Internet entrepreneur– CHC “...has created the sort of transparency around health costs that the MA government has been
promising for years -- and failing to deliver.... It is a model for what health care consumers around the country need.” – Carey Goldberg, co-host WBUR’s CommonHealth blog
--”It’s about time. Clear price information so we can make informed health care choices. We’ve been needing this for years.” --Robert Field, Professor of Law and Public Health, Drexel University
--”Thanks to sites like ClearHealthCosts, price transparency is on the way…ClearHealthCosts will add great value.” – Dr. Neel Shah, founder, costsofcare.org, a Boston nonprofit working to expand the discourse on health spending
The Team
• Jeanne Pinder, founder and CEO, 25-year veteran editor and reporter at The New York Times
• Fred Lindberg, CTO role• Elizabeth Celms, Vish Persaud, Sherry Mazzocchi, Lois
DeSocio, Abigail Kret, reporter-writer-researchers, other journalists on a freelance, as-needed basis
• Jenn Schiffer, Web developer• Database development by our business associates at
alliedstrategy.com and Revsquare.com• Joel Jennings, data sanitization engineer
Advisers
• Jeff Jarvis, “What Would Google Do?”• Lee DeBoer, PropellerNYC early-stage
advisers• Carl Lavin, homepage honcho, CNN News
(ex-NYT, ex-Forbes)• Stefanie Syman, head of business
development, atavist.com • Bill Richter, Richter Law Offices, Santa
Cruz startup lawyer
Thank you for your support.
