Agencies can help clients find lowest cost healthcare with LesliesList.org

United Way’s focus on health includes increasing access to quality health services for uninsured and underinsured individuals. A key strategy in advancing this cause is helping connect these populations with the lowest cost prescriptions and medical services available in their geographic area. To this end, we’d like to introduce you to our friends at LesliesList, a no-cost online service that compares the price of care across metropolitan Chicago. Leslie started this service in her own spare time in order to help her underinsured and uninsured patients, and has grown it into a valuable, comprehensive, and trustworthy resource. Please read on to see the dramatic difference LesliesList can make in lowering cost for a patient.

Prescription drug and medical testing prices vary enormously

By Leslie Ramirez, MD

Out-of-pocket payers – the uninsured and the underinsured who often turn to United Way-supported agencies for help – pay some of the highest prices for healthcare because they aren’t part of a large pool of insured people getting a volume discount. This is not news.

But what IS news is that in many instances, these patients could be paying less – sometimes one tenth the cost — if they are able to do price comparisons. Just as consumers use Travelocity to book the cheapest airline tickets and Cars.com to shop for cars, patients may now use the Internet to comparison shop for prescription drugs and medical tests, such as mammograms and MRIs. Since March 2009, LesliesList.org has been providing a free healthcare price comparison Web site to the Chicagoland area.

We know that patients often fail to fill a needed prescription or to get a crucial test because they pay out-of-pocket and, when they check the price at their local pharmacy or hospital, they realize they can’t afford it.

But by comparison shopping, perhaps they can. A few examples:

• Z-pack, 5 day antibiotic: $9 at Costco vs $47 at Kmart.
• Zocor, the cholesterol drug, 30 tabs: $5 at Kmart vs $55 at Walgreens.
• Zofran, anti-nausea drug, 30 tabs: $22 at Costco vs $648 at Walgreens.

These aren’t isolated instances of wild price disparities. Of the hundreds of commonly prescribed drugs LesliesList.org supplies prices on, big price differences are typical. And no single pharmacy chain is cheapest across the board – as the Kmart examples above illustrate.

Prices vary just as dramatically in medical testing:

• CT scan of the chest: $279 at Advanced Medical Imaging Center vs $2,578 at Advocate-South Suburban.
• Mammogram: $72 at Our Lady of Resurrection Medical Center vs $400 at Northwestern Memorial.
• An echocardiogram: $403 at Loyola University Center Cardiographics Lab vs $2,428 at Saint Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center.

Most people – and, indeed, most doctors – are entirely unaware that prices vary so much, and that means that out-of-pocket payers in the Chicagoland area are spending millions of dollars more than they need to, or are forgoing care crucial to their health.

Our mission with LesliesList.org is to help all patients get the care they need at the best possible price. The medical testing sites listed are all American College of Radiology accredited. We update the prescription and testing prices regularly by actually calling on the phone and asking the institution or pharmacy how much they charge for a specific service or medicine. Other Web sites promise price-comparisons, but what they usually serve up are average prices in a given area. Other sites are trying to sell this information. LesliesList.org does not charge any fee or have any ties to any corporations or other healthcare entities. We are a simply a community service to the Chicago area.

In addition, we provide what we believe is the region’s most comprehensive list of free and low-cost clinics – covering primary care, ob-gyne, dentistry, pediatrics, HIV care and more.

All this makes LesliesList.org an indispensible tool kit for the uninsured and underinsured – and for the social service agencies, clinics and others who help them. My colleagues and I are available and eager to meet with social service agencies and clinics to explain the Web site and how it is most effectively used on a day-to-day basis. We welcome all questions and comments: leslieslist@gmail.com.

By using LesliesList.org you can help the uninsured and underinsured get the medical care they deserve.

Rachel Baker

Rachel is the Web Experience Manager for United Way of Metropolitan Chicago.