FAIR Health Consumer Access

A Look Back at 2020 on the FAIR Health Consumer Website

In 2020, FAIR Health added several COVID-19 resources to its free, award-winning consumer website fairhealthconsumer.org. The resources make the site even more useful in these challenging times. They include typical costs for COVID-19 testing codes and an article on dealing with COVID-19 costs. They also include total treatment costs for three different COVID-19 scenarios. Other highlights of 2020 can be found here in the FAIR Health Consumer year-end statistics for 2020. The statistics are also displayed in an infographic.

In 2020, FAIR Health and its consumer website (also available in Spanish at fairhealthconsumidor.org) won seven eHealthcare Leadership Awards. These are the most such honors FAIR Health has ever received in a single year. The awards included the Mark Gothberg eHealthcare Organizational Commitment Award, the highest honor of the eHealthcare Leadership Awards.

Top Medical and Dental Search Terms
FAIR Health Consumer includes medical and dental cost lookup tools. These allow you to search for typical costs of healthcare procedures in your geographic area. In 2020, COVID-19 procedure codes were added. With these, you can search for diagnostic tests for active COVID-19 infection and tests for past COVID-19 infection.

In 2020, the top five medical terms searched with the medical cost lookup tool were:

1. Physical therapy;
2. Chiropractic;
3. Anesthesia;
4. Psychotherapy; and
5. Ultrasound.

“Physical therapy” climbed up the list from 2019, when it was the fifth most common term searched. The rest of the top five terms differed in 2019.

In 2020, the top five dental terms searched were:

1. Root canal;
2. Implant;
3. Orthodontic;
4. Crown; and
5. Cleaning.

The top five dental terms in 2019 were the same, though the order differed somewhat. “Root canal” topped the list both years.

Age and Gender
Adults of all ages used FAIR Health Consumer in 2020. But the largest age group was that of people aged 65 and older. This was a change from 2019, when the largest age group was that of people aged 25-34. The age breakdown of FAIR Health Consumer users in 2020 was:

• 18-24: 8.84 percent;
• 25-34: 19.86 percent;
• 35-44: 14.05 percent;
• 45-54: 15.36 percent;
• 55-64: 19.56 percent; and
• 65+: 22.33 percent.

In 2020, 63 percent of FAIR Health Consumer users were female, 37 percent male. The share who were female grew since 2019, when 57 percent of users were female.

Insurance Status
As in 2019, FAIR Health Consumer users in 2020 represented all types of insurance status. These included out of network (31.5 percent), in network (28.4 percent) and uninsured (12.7 percent).

Top User Locations
The top 10 states from which visits to FAIR Health Consumer came in 2020 were:

1. New York;
2. California;
3. Texas;
4. Florida;
5. New Jersey;
6. Illinois;
7. Georgia;
8. Pennsylvania;
9. Virginia; and
10. Ohio.

The list of top 10 states in 2019 was similar. But it included Oregon (in fourth place) and did not include Ohio. In both years, all four US census regions (Midwest, Northeast, South and West) were represented.

Most Popular Educational Topics
FAIR Health Consumer features a rich library of FH^® Insurance Basics. These are articles and videos on healthcare costs and health insurance. One article added for 2020 is “How to Deal with COVID-19 Medical Costs.” The most popular topics from this library in 2020 were:

• Types of out-of-network reimbursement;
• Negotiating your costs;
• How to review your medical bill;
• Estimating costs for a hospital stay; and
• Healthcare services not covered by health insurance.

Most Frequently Visited Total Treatment Cost Bundles
FAIR Health Consumer’s medical cost lookup tool gives you access to FH^® Total Treatment Cost bundles. With these, you can view the total cost of caring for certain chronic and acute conditions and event-based procedures. In 2020, bundles were added for three COVID-19 scenarios: hospitalization, hospitalization with complexities and non-hospitalization. The most frequently visited bundles in 2020 were:

• C-section;
• Vaginal delivery;
• Knee replacement;
• Hip replacement; and
• Type 1 diabetes.

For an infographic with these statistics, click here.