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.

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?

What is HealthCamp

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!

How to Find Us

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!

• Christopher Parks – @caparks
• Robert Hendrick – @jrh3
• Chris McIntyre – @theferf
• change:healthcare – @askch

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.

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

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.

About the ASKch Twitter 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

About Nina Cardona, All Things Considered Host & News Reporter

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.

Now, healthcare answers come in 140 characters or less. Which is a far cry from the nearly 2,000-page health reform bill the U.S. Congress has been proposing.

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.

Hey, when cutting the cost of healthcare, who needs Washington, anyway?

“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 .

Who is change:healthcare?

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.

It’s all talk and NO action.

Now compare that with the recently-launched Twitter app from change:healthcare. It allows tweeple to receive information on health conditions and medication costs as well as prescription medication costs, generic alternatives and more using secure private messages via Twitter.

Government talks. Industry acts.

If you want to find the cost of prescription medication and medical term definitions via Twitter – Just Ask! Follow @askch on twitter and send a question in the proper format to see how you can change healthcare too.

To personalize your email settings, start by selected the Profile settings link just below your user name on the upper-left side of the screen.  Then, you will be brought to your main profile settings.  From here, click the Email Settings tab.

Here you can edit what emails you receive and how often you receive them.  Simply choose your desired settings, then click Save Settings and you’re done!

We hope that this new feature improves your experience as a change:healthcare user!

Besides the new interface that is part of the new change:healthcare design, another great feature is the “What’s New” section located on your dashboard.  When you view “What’s New,” you will see recent activity from friends, updates to your doctors profiles and ways to save money.  We have added this and other new features to help make the site easier to use and understand.  With this better understanding, we hope you continue to engage in the various components of the site- both saving you money and making you a smarter healthcare consumer.  Check out the video  below to learn more about “What’s New!”

In recent weeks we have done a lot of work on the site, considering ways we can improve the experience for our consumer users.  Hopefully, you have noticed our efforts. We plan to continue to work identifying ways to help you save on your healthcare without having your data.

However, when we are working with your TPA or employer we are able to pull in your specific healthcare claims data.  What does this do?  Well for starters it allows change:healthcare to perform a review of your spending and present you with opportunities/ways to save on your healthcare.  Most importantly, these ways to save are specific to your healthcare spending, the prescriptions you take, and the providers you saw. The red circle in the image below identifies our cost savings alerts.

Additionally, we are able to  provide you with detailed reporting on your healthcare spending, as well as alternative providers seen by your peers for the same services.  You can research these specific providers though change:healthcare’s easy to understand profiles, which contain information on cost and quality. Our detailed reporting can be accessed through one of these two icons on the dashboard.  One provides extended information on ways you can save money, the other provides detailed reports on where you went and what you spent, alongside where your peers went and what they paid for the same services. An overview of your detailed reporting is present in the left hand column.

Please let us know if you have any questions or are interested in learning more about our employer and TPA products!

Our new interface is intended to make our application simpler and easy to use and understand!!  Yep, that’s right… We want to assist you in finding the information you need, identifying ways to save money, and managing your healthcare claims, bills, and EOBs all in one place.

Our new navigation is today’s highlight! Take a look at the screen shots below.

This first view relates to accounts that have automatic claims feeds associated with them.  When your employer and/or TPA works with change:healthcare, we are able to show you individualized and relevant ways you can save on your healthcare (based upon where you spend your healthcare dollar). It’s kinda like having someone watching out for you 24/7, notifying you about ways you can save money.

As the red circles highlight, you can now simply navigate between the “Find”, “Ways to Save”, and “Manage” tabs.  The center of your dashboard even features four icons that help you identify where to start upon logging into your account.

The next screen shot gives you a view of the new consumer accounts.  When you log into your change:healthcare account for the first time since our update, or sign up for a brand new change:healthcare account, you will notice two icons in the center of the dashboard. They provide quick access to search for information on our site and provide an overview of your healthcare expenses.

We look forward to sharing more information about our new interface with you, and showing you how change:healthcare can help you save money and make smarter consumer decisions that suit your individual healthcare needs.

Please let us know if you have any questions, feedback, comments, etc. We love to hear from users!