If You Build a Reliable Healthcare Planning Website for New Yorkers, They Will Come
FAIR Health's data show New Yorkers are embracing a website to help them plan for their medical and dental needs. An early lesson? Consumers go mobile for medical information.
Since last September, when we launched
Vital Statistics
Men and women of all ages visited
- Ages 18-24—12.40%
- Ages 25-34—13.58%
- Ages 35-44—9.65%
- Ages 45-54—12.21%
- Ages 55-64—18.90%
- Ages 65 and older—33.25%
Baby boomers, whom the US Census Bureau defines as ages 54-72, visited in large numbers, with about half of the site’s visitors aged 55 and older. The other half of visitors ranged in age from 18 to 54. Millennials, whom the Census Bureau defines as ages 18-36, accounted for over a quarter of all site visitors.
Both women (63.09%) and men (36.91%) visited the site. We have conducted focus groups showing that women are often healthcare decision makers and caregivers. In keeping with those findings, the majority of visitors were women, but, significantly, men also were well represented.
The top medical terms visitors searched for were (in order from most to least common): MRI, colonoscopy, dermatological, physical therapy and emergency. The top dental terms were (in the same order): root canal, implant, orthodontic, extraction and crown.
The vast majority of visitors (74.52%) used mobile devices to access the site, suggesting how popular that technology has become for accessing all kinds of information, including healthcare. Tablets (18.71%) and desktops (6.77%) accounted for the rest of the traffic.
Twenty-five percent of visitors reached the site through a link on social media, indicating the growing power of that channel in directing people to healthcare resources. Sixty-five percent of visitors came through a direct web search for the site, largely due to a statewide educational campaign. Referrals triggered by media mentions about the site accounted for most of the remaining traffic.
Why They Are Coming
It is easy to understand why
With generous support from the New York State Health Foundation, we used our award-winning national consumer site,
- Cost lookup tools that enable consumers to estimate in-network and out of-network costs for thousands of medical procedures in their geographic areas, and out-of-network costs for dental procedures (estimated in-network dental costs are due to be released later this year);
- Total and itemized in-network and out-of-network costs of 25 common episodes of care or “medical bundles”;
- Individual provider listings for 100 frequently performed procedures, including information about providers’ practices and prices;
- Hospital-specific pricing for 20 common outpatient procedures with specified quality metrics at hospitals in four New York locations—Albany, Buffalo, Syracuse and Westchester; and
- A rich educational curriculum with articles on insurance basics, a glossary, videos, resource links and information on healthcare quality measures.
The site has already been recognized as a critical consumer tool for advancing price transparency. Last fall,
Because healthcare costs are a pressing concern in this nation, other states, encouraged by the success of
To learn how
About the Author
Robin Gelburd, JD, is the president of
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