Startups
We’re working to bring transparency to the health-care marketplace. By building a platform that focuses on price information for medical procedures, we are empowering consumers to make informed decisions about the costs of their medical care and coverage.
Clearhealthcosts.com was founded by Jeanne Pinder, a longtime journalist who has a deep interest in health care and a great deal of experience in (and frustration with) with sorting through medical statements and trying to understand them.
Pinder volunteered for a buyout from The New York Times in late 2009 after more than 20 years there as an editor, reporter and human resources executive. She was lucky enough to take a class at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism with Jeff Jarvis (“What Would Google Do?” and www.buzzmachine.com) and Jeremy Caplan (director of education for the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism). At the end of that class, in a contest with other students, she won a $20,000 grant from the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.
Shortly thereafter, she won one of the inaugural Global Digital News Frontier grants from the International Women’s Media Foundation, using Ford Foundation money, to help launch this site.
She came to this topic because she noticed that the numbers on her medical bills seemed to vary widely for reasons that didn’t seem obvious.
Why would anesthesia for a 30-minute surgery cost $2,000 or so one place and $6,000 at another place? Why would a simple procedure like a colonoscopy gain a $913 reimbursement one place and a $2,700 reimbursement at another place?
Among the biggest questions in health care today are these: Why can’t I know what medical procedures and items will cost in advance? Why do they cost so much? Why is it so hard to understand my bills?
Clearhealthcosts.com is here to help. With data from different sources – from our independent reporting, from health-care providers, from participating consumers and from databases – we are working to answer those questions.
People who know more about the costs of medical care will be better consumers. That’s why we’re here.
Clearhealthcosts.com was founded by Jeanne Pinder, a longtime journalist who has a deep interest in health care and a great deal of experience in (and frustration with) with sorting through medical statements and trying to understand them.
Pinder volunteered for a buyout from The New York Times in late 2009 after more than 20 years there as an editor, reporter and human resources executive. She was lucky enough to take a class at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism with Jeff Jarvis (“What Would Google Do?” and www.buzzmachine.com) and Jeremy Caplan (director of education for the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism). At the end of that class, in a contest with other students, she won a $20,000 grant from the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.
Shortly thereafter, she won one of the inaugural Global Digital News Frontier grants from the International Women’s Media Foundation, using Ford Foundation money, to help launch this site.
She came to this topic because she noticed that the numbers on her medical bills seemed to vary widely for reasons that didn’t seem obvious.
Why would anesthesia for a 30-minute surgery cost $2,000 or so one place and $6,000 at another place? Why would a simple procedure like a colonoscopy gain a $913 reimbursement one place and a $2,700 reimbursement at another place?
Among the biggest questions in health care today are these: Why can’t I know what medical procedures and items will cost in advance? Why do they cost so much? Why is it so hard to understand my bills?
Clearhealthcosts.com is here to help. With data from different sources – from our independent reporting, from health-care providers, from participating consumers and from databases – we are working to answer those questions.
People who know more about the costs of medical care will be better consumers. That’s why we’re here.
Overview
Location
United States, New York, Village of Pelham
Phone
+1 914-552-9876
Mentions in press and media 12
| Date | Title | Description |
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| May 6, 2020 | 8 Tips From Mom Founders Navigating Parenting While Running Their Companies From Home | Two months and a lifetime ago, parents around the world quickly pivoted the way they work. Those lucky enough to have the privilege of transitioning from offices or co-working spaces began unexpectedly working from their homes. Many of thes... |
| Jan 16, 2019 | Need hospital care or tests? Prices now are listed online — here’s how to use that info. | Want to know how much your hospital is going to charge for that knee surgery? U.S. hospitals are now required to post list prices for medical services online, under federal rules meant to help patients find affordable care and avoid hefty s... |
| Jan 14, 2019 | What’s next after the CMS price transparency “first step” | With the new year came with a new rule from CMS requiring hospitals to post their standard prices online publicly in what CMS Administrator Seema Verma called a “first step” toward price transparency in healthcare. Born out of a provision i... |
| Nov 20, 2014 | Patient shark tank takes much gentler approach than sharp-toothed muse | Here were some of the other teams that competed. Trauma Ready Powered by Google Glass, TraumaReady uses a checklist approach to trauma surgery to manage the complex sequence of events like lostics, transfusons, medications — a tool it refer... |
| Jul 8, 2014 | Compared Care helps patients price-shop for medical procedures | Ethan Steininger’s friend’s father recently needed a major surgery. The operation put him $40,000 in debt. “We did some research and found the man in France who wrote the book on this surgery was charging like $4,000,” he said. That’s where... |
| Oct 10, 2013 | What’s at the end of the road to cost transparency? 5 fresh ideas on the future of healthcare | Investors are pumping millions of dollars into healthcare price transparency startups. Journalists are calling shenanigans on hospital pricing systems. Governments are trying to help by publishing hospital data they never have before. But w... |
| Sep 28, 2012 | Medicine’s Kayak.com? ClearHealthCosts checks healthcare costs for medical procedures | “The problem we’re trying to solve is that no one knows what anything costs in healthcare – it’s the last big opaque marketplace,” Pinder said. Data-driven price-comparison sites have been among the hottest digital health investments in 201... |
| Patient shark tank takes much gentler approach than sharp-toothed muse | A nutrition app that tailors diets to patients’ diseases and medications to avoid adverse reactions, Nutrify shared the winners’ circle spotlight with a price transparency tool, Clear Health Costs. A tie? That would never happen on Shark Ta... | |
| What’s next after the CMS price transparency “first step” | With the new year came with a new rule from CMS requiring hospitals to post their standard prices online publicly in what CMS Administrator Seema Verma called a “first step” toward price transparency in healthcare. Born out of a provision i... |
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FAQ about ClearHealthCosts
What has the press written about ClearHealthCosts?
Parsers VC has collected 12 articles mentioning ClearHealthCosts, among them “8 Tips From Mom Founders Navigating Parenting While Running Their Companies From Home” (May 6, 2020) and “Need hospital care or tests? Prices now are listed online — here’s how to use that info.” (Jan 16, 2019).
Is ClearHealthCosts still active?
Yes, ClearHealthCosts is active; its latest activity on Parsers VC dates from May 13, 2024.