FAIR Health Moves Forward with Groundbreaking Pilot Pairing Clinical Decision Aids with Cost Information

Initiative Advanced with Generous Grant Award from The New York Community Trust

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Apr 24, 2019, 06:36 ET

NEW YORK, April 24, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- FAIR Health will launch a groundbreaking pilot that integrates cost information into a shared decision-making (SDM) tool for specific palliative care scenarios, with generous funding from The New York Community Trust (The Trust). In collaboration with recognized SDM expert Professor Glyn Elwyn of the Dartmouth Institute, FAIR Health plans to implement the clinical decision aids with relevant cost data on its free, award-winning consumer website, fairhealthconsumer.org.

The pilot is a natural extension of the pioneering work done by FAIR Health Consumer in making healthcare cost information transparent, elevating health insurance literacy and helping consumers navigate the healthcare system. A national, independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing transparency to healthcare costs and health insurance information, FAIR Health powers the cost information on FAIR Health Consumer with its database of billions of private healthcare claims—the largest in the nation. The same database will provide the cost data for the new SDM tool.

SDM, the discussion between patients/caregivers and healthcare providers regarding various treatment options, has been known to increase patient engagement and reduce healthcare costs. In the past, the utility of SDM tools has been limited by the absence of cost data to complement the clinical information. The pairing of decision aids, to be developed by Dr. Elwyn and made available through EBSCO Health, with a rich source of cost data will be a novel way of advancing consumer decision making.

FAIR Health operates on both the micro and macro levels. On the micro level, the project will help individual consumers make sound decisions. Once the SDM tool is launched on the FAIR Health Consumer website, FAIR Health will collaborate with organizations and professionals that provide palliative care services in the New York metropolitan area in order to promote awareness of this resource. On the macro level, and as part of the grant-funded collaboration, FAIR Health and Dr. Elwyn will evaluate the extent to which the tool was helpful in the decision-making process.

"Shared decision making promises to play a critical role in increasing healthcare transparency, for the benefit of both patients and healthcare providers," FAIR Health President Robin Gelburd commented. "We are excited to collaborate with Dr. Elwyn, and honored to receive this grant award from The New York Community Trust."

Dr. Elwyn stated: "I am pleased to collaborate with FAIR Health on this important project. Conversations around palliative care options are key to advancing an aspect of healthcare that is not often spoken about, but that is quite significant."

Irfan Hasan, program director of The Trust's Healthy Lives, stated: "Taking an active role in one's healthcare decisions is vital to a New Yorker's quality of life. Decision aids, combined with trusted cost information, empower patients and their caregivers to do just that. The Trust is proud to support the efforts of Dr. Elwyn and FAIR Health."

About The New York Community Trust
The New York Community Trust is a public charity and a grantmaking foundation dedicated to improving the lives of residents of New York City and its suburbs. It brings together individuals, families, foundations, and businesses to build a better community and support nonprofits that make a difference. It applies knowledge, creativity, and resources to the most challenging issues in an effort to ensure meaningful opportunities and a better quality of life for all New Yorkers, today and tomorrow.

About FAIR Health
FAIR Health is a national, independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing transparency to healthcare costs and health insurance information through data products, consumer resources and health systems research support. FAIR Health possesses the nation's largest collection of private healthcare claims data, which includes over 28 billion claim records contributed by payors and administrators who insure or process claims for private insurance plans covering more than 150 million individuals. FAIR Health licenses its privately billed data and data products—including benchmark modules, data visualizations, custom analytics, episodes of care analytics and market indices—to commercial insurers and self-insurers, employers, providers, hospitals and healthcare systems, government agencies, researchers and others. Certified by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) as a national Qualified Entity, FAIR Health also receives data representing the experience of all individuals enrolled in traditional Medicare Parts A, B and D; FAIR Health houses data on Medicare Advantage enrollees in its private claims data repository. FAIR Health can produce insightful analytic reports and data products based on combined Medicare and commercial claims data for government, providers, payors and other authorized users. FAIR Health's systems for processing and storing protected health information have earned HITRUST CSF certification and achieved AICPA SOC 2 compliance by meeting the rigorous data security requirements of these standards. As a testament to the reliability and objectivity of FAIR Health data, the data have been incorporated in statutes and regulations around the country and designated as the official, neutral data source for a variety of state health programs, including workers' compensation and personal injury protection (PIP) programs. FAIR Health data serve as an official reference point in support of certain state balance billing laws that protect consumers against bills for surprise out-of-network and emergency services. FAIR Health also uses its database to power a free consumer website available in English and Spanish and an English/Spanish mobile app, which enable consumers to estimate and plan for their healthcare expenditures and offer a rich educational platform on health insurance. The website has been honored by the White House Summit on Smart Disclosure, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), URAC, the eHealthcare Leadership Awards, appPicker, Employee Benefit News and Kiplinger's Personal Finance. FAIR Health also is named a top resource for patients in Elisabeth Rosenthal's book, An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back. For more information on FAIR Health, visit fairhealth.org.

About Dr. Glyn Elwyn
Glyn Elwyn, MD, PhD, MSc, a professor and physician-researcher at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, is the director of the Institute's Patient Engagement program. Dr. Elwyn and his international interdisciplinary team, the Preference Laboratory, study the effects of shared decision making in clinical settings. Using measurement tools such as CollaboRATE and Observer OPTION, the team developed the Option Grid™ decision aids.

About EBSCO Health
EBSCO Health, part of EBSCO Information Services, is a leading provider of clinical decision support solutions, healthcare business intelligence, and medical research information for the healthcare industry. EBSCO Health users include professionals in medicine, nursing, and allied health. Flagship products include DynaMed Plus^®, Dynamic Health^™, clinical e-books and e-journals, EBSCO Discovery Service^™, licensed databases (such as CINAHL^®Complete, MEDLINE Complete) plus EBSCONET^®. EBSCO Health databases are powered by EBSCOhost^®, the electronic resource favored by libraries around the world.