Co-Founder and COO Robert Hendrick spent a few minutes with the local TV crew to share tips on how to save money on your prescriptions. Easy steps that can add up to huge savings. You’ll be surprised!
Thanks for all of the support, and for trusting us to help you make smarter healthcare decisions and save money in the process.
Folks from coast-to-coast are talking about change:healthcare! The New York Daily News is talking about healthcare cost savings in the east, while the team was in California presenting as part of a panel at the Health 2.0 conference. And here at home in Nashville, the Venture Capitalist arena is buzzing about the company too. We are amazed by the number of people taking interest in saving money on their healthcare, and who trust us to help them out.
Below is a video from the Nashville NBC affiliate WSMV. The clip shows change:healthcare COO and co-founder Robert Hendrick working with the reporter to show people 4 ways to save on their medical costs.
All in all a very good week at change:healthcare! Thanks for all of the support, and for trusting us to teach you how to save money on your doctors visits and prescriptions, and to help you make smarter healthcare decisions.
In less than a week, a few of us will be in San Francisco for the Health 2.0 conference as well as attending the HealthCamp SF Bay. We are excited to be part of such an innovative group of folks trying to make changes in the healthcare world. You may be asking… what is this HealthCamp thing?
HealthCamp is about putting social media, open source and the best of the Internet, Mobile Web and process innovation to work for better health care and health technology. HealthCamp is a user-organized “un–conference” movement that brings consumers, health providers, health industry experts and technology professionals together for a one day event to exchange ideas informally, locally, openly. Participants themselves provide the content, with break-out sessions they develop themselves and plug into a schedule grid on the day of the event. Anyone can present and host a session in nearly any format.
#HCSFBay is our hashtag on Twitter, please use it and spread the word!
Well, if you don’t know who we are or what we do, you can take a peek at our sexy personal detiails to see pictures and bios for us (Christopher Parks, Robert Hendrick and Chris McIntyre). If you are wondering what we do, head on over to http://www.changehealthcare.com and see how we can help you save money on your health related expenses.
Make sure you follow us on Twitter, that is the best way to keep up with us when we are on the road!
See you there!
In a phone call from the NPR affiliate in Nashville, Host & News Reporter Nina Cardona talked with change:healthcare Product Manager Chris McIntyre about a newly released service that lets people find the cost of a prescription by asking Twitter. The result… a segment on the Morning Edition radio show this morning!
The Morning Edition with Jacqueline Fellows runs each morning during the week. We are honored to be a featured part of the show. We have included a snippet below, just click play and see what NPR had to say about our new service! You can find more information, or listen to the entire show here. There is also a written transcript of the interview from Nashville Public Radio.
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If you have ever left the doctors office confused about a diagnosis or wondering how much your new prescription is going to cost you, you should definitely check out the new ASKch Twitter healthcare service.
AskCH is a one-of-a-kind healthcare tool. Send a healthcare cost or definition question in the proper format, and receive the answer with a link to find detailed information! This service was designed to help you save money on your health related expenses and to learn about health issues. It will give you instant cost information for prescriptions as well as definitions for common health issues from change:healthcare. We exist to help people save money on prescriptions, doctor visits and medical procedures and try to teach people along the way.
Find out more about the ASKch Service at: http://ask.changehealthcare.com
A Middle Tennesseean since the age of two, Nina Cardona grew up in a home whose radio dials seemed to be permanently welded into the “90.3″ position. She credits WPLN’s music programming with triggering an interest in the arts that lead her to earn a Bachelor of Music degree from Converse College. After seven years as one of the station’ s music hosts, Nina became a reporter and local host of All Things Considered in 2004.
Starting today, consumers can simply tweet healthcare questions such as “what is diabetes” to @askch and it will return a short description and a link to more information. Or tweet “cost of celebrex near 37209” and you get “average price of $163 in 37209″ in return.
The engine behind this new Twitter application is Nashville-based consumerism company change:healthcare, which uses the web to provide information to the public about healthcare, its costs and ways to save money. Company developers realized that the social media phenomenon could extend consumer information into the exam room, so they developed the first phase of what will be a much larger application that delivers accurate healthcare costs and information to consumers’ fingertips within 60 seconds, helping them be more informed and potentially save hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars.
“It’s not everything you need to know, but it gets you to a well-informed starting point when you want to make a smart healthcare purchase,” says Christopher Parks, co-founder and CEO of change:healthcare. “If you’re looking for information about the cost of a prescription your physician is prescribing, then we’ve got an answer. If you want to know more about the flu virus, we get you started on finding out more.”
“It’s the first time ever that consumers can use an existing social media application to quickly discover – wherever they are — how they can save money on their healthcare. We already have the next iteration in beta that significantly broadens the information for consumers,” Parks said.
To work effectively, users first need to “follow” @askch from their Twitter account. Then, it’s simply a matter of asking questions via direct message (to keep responses confidential).
For the beta launch, change:healthcare identified the five most consistently asked questions at their website. As users provide more feedback about the service and their information needs via the @askch page, the types of information and questions will be expanded.
The search works using a pre-defined format: What is (health issue); What is (drug name); Cost of (drug name) near (zipcode); Generic for (drug name); and Generic discounts for (drug name) near (zipcode). Messages should be asked as listed and without punctuation.
For those that need it, the company has developed a simple tutorial .
A technology firm focused on helping people save money and make informed healthcare consumer decisions, change:healthcare provides its users access to information about medical provider quality, cost, access and performance. There’s even an alert function that proactively notifies users when there’s a cost savings opportunity.
The company’s core business is providing employers and employees relevant and easy-to-use information about where in their area they can get the most cost-effective treatment, services and prescriptions.
“There’s a lot of misinformation about healthcare and costs running around out there.” Parks continued. “So when it comes to your health, it’s nice to know that there’s a professional source you can turn to 24-7 for a quick answer. Twitter just helps us compress the delivery time to consumers for that information. And all folks need to do is follow us on Twitter @askch.”
View the published press release and Download it in PDF format here.
The Nashville Business Journal is talking about change:healthcare and the Keystone Institute’s new partnership.
“The Keystone Institute for Translational Medicine — an alliance of three Pennsylvania medical institutions led by Temple University — is researching the genetic, behavioral and social causes of diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, lung disease, obesity and certain cancers that affect urban and rural Pennsylvanians.”
change:healthcare has been chosen by GeneSyn IP Ventures, LLC, a partner of the Keystone Institute for Translational Medicine in Philadelphia, Penn., to support a national translational medicine technology consortium, officials announced today.
The move is intended to help the Keystone Institute for Translational Medicine more quickly reach their goal of increasing the speed with which medical and health-related discoveries become significant patient care advances.
An alliance of three Pennsylvania medical institutions led by Temple University School of Medicine, the Keystone Institute for Translational Medicine is implementing research on the genetic, behavioral and social causes of diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, lung disease, obesity and specific cancers that affect urban and rural Pennsylvanians. The institute’s commercialization partner, GeneSyn IP Ventures, is leading a group of technology providers to support the institute’s mission and develop new tools for advancing bench-to-bedside medicine.
”We selected change:healthcare because their innovative platform provides valuable services and tools to patients and facilitates communication among all stakeholders in translational medicine – researchers, healthcare professionals, consumers, patients and community leaders,” said Dr. Elliot Menkowitz, chairman, GeneSyn IP Ventures, and Temple University School of Medicine alumnus. “We are searching for leaders within the Health 2.0 community, like change:healthcare, who can bring experience and tools to bear in transforming medical knowledge.”
“The Keystone Institute is seeking to remove barriers that have previously impeded the translation of medical research discoveries to solutions in clinical practice, said Eric Abel, assistant dean and assistant vice president, Temple University Health Enterprise. “I have every confidence that the technology consortium will help us achieve that goal.”
A technology company focused on cost transparency while helping people save money and make more informed healthcare consumer decisions, the internet-based change:healthcare (www.changehealthcare.com) provides its member users access to a wide variety of healthcare information and social networking processes to more easily share healthcare experiences and attitudes about medical provider quality, cost, access and performance.
“We’re excited about joining this national healthcare consortium,” said Christopher Parks, co-Founder and CEO of change:healthcare. “Our technology tools are helping change the way consumers access, judge and share health and cost information, as they navigate the American healthcare system. We look forward to adapting, developing, and supporting the translational medicine technologies of the future.”
By: Kat Sanders (more info on the author below)
There was a time when you had to choose between engineering and medicine even though you were equally inclined to both. The situation has undergone a vast change today, and you have common ground between technology and medicine in the form of healthcare IT. Although it is a relatively fledgling field, it is beginning to become popular by the day even though there are still various hurdles that need to be crossed. If we’re gunning for the success of healthcare IT and EMR systems across the entire healthcare spectrum, we need to ensure that:
• The doctors are as much a part of it as the tech guys: When a system is designed, it goes without saying that the end user must be the most important person to be considered. It is their use and comfort that must be put above everything else. So a system must be designed to suit doctors’ needs rather than be the most sophisticated of its kind.
• The system is easy enough for even the older doctors to understand: The younger crowd of medicos is more tech-savvy and able to relate to the meeting point between technology and medicine and harness their iPods and iPhones to provide them with the information they need to treat their patients much more efficiently. It’s the older ones who are skeptical about the new-fangled technology and reluctant to use it. They must be targeted, trained and convinced if EMR systems and other IT innovations related to healthcare are to be a universal success.
• The doctors with more experience are roped in for their expertise: One way to involve the older doctors and specialists is to enlist their help in preparing knowledge bases that are then interpreted and translated into IT systems using the correct logic. They are there to give the tech personnel their expertise so that it can be used to provide accurate information when treating patients.
• The medical personnel are given enough training: A system is only as good as the person using it, so unless a doctor is given training in using the system, it could turn out to be a damp squib. There will be an initial resistance period, but with persistence, doctors who welcome positive changes are able to understand that this is the future of medicine and patient care.
• Any change is consensual and cooperative: And finally, any new changes or additions to the system must be made only with the consent and cooperation of the people who are using them. Only when there is a mutual understanding between the people who write the systems and those who use it will be possible for these healthcare IT systems to become a routine entity in every hospital and healthcare facility across the world.
This article is written by Kat Sanders, who regularly blogs on the topic of surgical tech schools at her blog iScrub. She welcomes your comments and questions at her email address: katsanders25@gmail.com
I’m privileged to be part of the change:healthcare team. It’s been almost 8 months since I started and a day has yet to go by that I’ve not learned something new from this dynamic team. I think very highly of the group … and because I know she won’t call attention to herself, I just have to share the ink spotlighting our own Katrina Welty! Two years out of school and her wisdom (in life) and knowledge (of healthcare) is incredible.
Check out the entire story by downloading the PDF!
Looks like we have taken a giant leap into the world of print. Yes– we have actually done something on paper!!! The crew at change:healthcare has published a book, “My Healthcare Is Killing Me: A Survival Guide for the American Healthcare Consumer.”
You can purchase the book for $16.00 (includes shipping) from www.myhealthcareiskillingme.com or better yet, download the FREE ebook!!
Written by Robert Hendrick, Christopher Parks and Katrina Welty, a trio of authors with a wide background of healthcare experience, the book provides an easy to read, straight-forward guide to navigating healthcare in its current state of confusion and chaos.
“We just want to see consumers take the book, implement its lessons and really help their families live a better life,” Hendrick said. “Seeing more transparency in this industry and consumers taking greater personal control of their healthcare as a result is all the satisfaction we need. Because then, we’ll know we’ve truly changed healthcare.”
The book is also available through all major book retailers including Amazon.com, Borders and Barnes and Noble, and others.
Let us know your thoughts… write a rant, review, or tell us your story!! We look forward to hearing from readers like you!
Visit MyHealthcareIsKillingMe.com for more information!
Out of Tragedy, a Commitment to Change Healthcare is Born
When both of Christopher Parks' parents passed away within a year of each other in 2006, he was left with more than just grief.
