Jeanne Pinder
People are often surprised to find that their insurance policies may cause them to pay more for prescriptions in the form of co-pays than they would pay if they simply put away their insurance card and chose to use cash. This is not true for every medication or every policy but it’s true often enough […]
Jeanne Pinder
Weekend watching: Here’s a special TV wrapup of our work so farwith our award-winning journalist partners, investigative reporter and anchor Lee Zurik at WVUE FOX 8 Live and Jed Lipinski and Manuel Torres at NOLA.com I The Times-Picayune, and their teams. We launched our New Orleans PriceCheck partnership in April 2017, using shoe-leather journalism, data journalism and crowdsourcing […]
Jeanne Pinder
As we wrap up our first three weeks of reporting on health care pricing in the New Orleans metro area, we’ve learned a lot. We’ve been able to save some people large amounts of money — and the medical establishment in the area is not universally happy with our work. “Tulane Medical Center president and […]
Jeanne Pinder
“When UnitedHealthcare exited the Affordable Care Act exchange in Louisiana last year, Kim Spencer was one of around 29,000 people forced to find a new insurance plan under the federal health care law. She chose Humana, then found a new primary care physician at Tulane University Medical Center, based on recommendations from friends,” our partner […]
Jeanne Pinder
“When Nancy DuBois began experiencing shoulder pain early last year, she worried she might need rotator cuff surgery. She saw a specialist at Tulane Institute of Sports Medicine, near the Tulane football stadium, who diagnosed her instead with a frozen shoulder, a common condition caused by injury or over-use. The visit, including an x-ray and […]
Jeanne Pinder
“Steve Fair woke up at 2 a.m. in his room at the Sheraton New Orleans to find that his uvula – the tissue that hangs from the back of one’s palate – had swollen to the size of a Hershey’s Kiss. Worried it might block his airway, he and his wife rushed down to the […]
Jeanne Pinder
How do people use our data? We’re often asked. Here are some snippets from real life: Selected emails, comments on stories and Facebook posts from our Cracking the Code partnership with partners WVUE FOX 8 Live and NOLA.com I The Times-Picayune in New Orleans. “Less than 18 hours before her scheduled abdominal MRI at Tulane Medical Center, […]
Jeanne Pinder
“At age 62, Cedric Valeary had yet to get a colonoscopy to screen for signs of colorectal cancer – the second deadliest type of cancer in the United States. During his annual check-up in December, his doctor told him it was time,” Jed Lipinski writes over at our partner, NOLA.com I The Times-Picayune in New […]
Jeanne Pinder
Dear hospitals: Please don’t keep secrets from us! Here’s Lee Zurik of WVUE Fox 8 Live in a new installment of our Cracking the Code partnership in New Orleans. The topic: What happens when people don’t know prices in advance, and wind up with burdensome — or ruinous — bills. Here’s Jed Lipinski of NOLA.com […]
Jeanne Pinder
Summary: Our New Orleans partnership has brought a response that is off the charts in every way. We are a little more than two weeks from our launch, and we are hearing from 10-60 people a day with data and questions on health care pricing. We’re also the topic of conversation in the community. In […]
