Grant-Funded Initiatives

Overview

Thanks to generous philanthropic support, FAIR Health continues to expand the use of our data to power consumer-oriented tools that support health insurance literacy and healthcare decision making nationwide. Our grant-funded research likewise informs national healthcare policy, identifies trends in clinical practice that speak to quality of care, and more.

Price-Informed Shared Decision-Making Initiatives

With several grants, FAIR Health has developed and disseminated groundbreaking shared decision-making tools that enhance condition-specific clinical decision aids with cost information, a critical component for healthcare decision making. These initiatives have aimed to provide educational resources to support price-informed shared decision-making—the collaborative discussion between patients and healthcare providers (and caregivers, as applicable) to decide on tests and treatment, balancing clinical evidence with patients’ preferences and values.

Active

A National Initiative to Spread, Scale and Sustain Price-Informed Shared Decision-Making and Health Care Engagement Tools for Older Adults and Family Caregivers: Phase III

2026–2029

Funder: The John A. Hartford Foundation

In March 2026, The John A. Hartford Foundation awarded FAIR Health with a third generous grant to broaden and sustain adoption and use of FAIR Health’s shared decision-making tools and resources with price information on the award-winning FAIR Health for Older Adults (fairhealtholderadults.org).

To advance this goal, FAIR Health will seek collaborations with 10 age-friendly clinical sites that will use the price-informed resources with at least 1,100 older patients and family caregivers at the point of care. Further, FAIR Health will launch a refreshed, national creative campaign, Healthy Decisions for Healthy Aging, in English and launch a new, culturally relevant Spanish-language campaign. FAIR Health will publish case studies and other insights throughout the initiative and at its close.

This grant builds on a prior planning grant and a Phase II implementation grant, both generously funded by The John A. Hartford Foundation.

FH® SHARE NYC (Sharing Healthy Aging Resources and Education New York City)

2025-2027

Funder: The New York Community Trust

In February 2025, The New York Community Trust awarded FAIR Health a grant to undertake a two-year New York City-based initiative, FH SHARE NYC (Sharing Healthy Aging Resources and Education New York City), with the goal of expanding education around shared decision making at the point of care among older adults, family caregivers and healthcare providers.

FAIR Health is collaborating with three New York City-based clinical institutions that are using FAIR Health’s price-informed shared decision-making tools and other healthcare engagement resources on FAIR Health for Older Adults (fairhealtholderadults.org) and its section on Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, with older patients and their family caregivers at the point of care. FAIR Health for Older Adults was developed with support from The John A. Hartford Foundation.

FH SHARE NYC also involves a robust dissemination campaign using diverse channels to disseminate FAIR Health’s tools and resources throughout the New York City metropolitan area. FAIR Health will publish a report with program findings at the end of the initiative.

Closed

A National Initiative to Advance Cost Information in Shared Decision Making for Older Adults with Serious Health Conditions: Phase II Implementation Project

2023-2026

Funder: The John A. Hartford Foundation

With a generous grant from The John A. Hartford Foundation (JAHF), FAIR Health undertook a three-year initiative with the goal of improving shared decision making and healthcare engagement among older adults and family caregivers in the United States. The project expanded the work begun under a prior JAHF-funded planning grant, which resulted in a new section for older adults, FAIR Health for Older Adults (fairhealtholderadults.org), on our free, national, award-winning consumer website (fairhealthconsumer.org).

FAIR Health for Older Adults offers, among other resources:

• Price-informed shared decision-making tools (combining clinical and cost information) for several conditions that affect older adults;
• Checklists and other educational resources intended to help older patients and family caregivers understand and manage their healthcare costs and make informed healthcare decisions;
• A printable, downloadable Toolkit for Healthy Aging;
• FH® Total Treatment Cost tools highlighting the range of costs for a year of care for certain conditions relevant to older adults; and
• A dedicated section for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

FAIR Health—with guidance from a project advisory board—disseminated FAIR Health for Older Adults at the clinical point of care through collaborations with four Age-Friendly Health Systems sites, and promoted the tools and resources to over 27 million older patients and family caregivers nationwide through a national campaign, Healthy Decisions for Healthy Aging.

Read FAIR Health’s February 2026 report on the program findings, Price-Informed Shared Decision Making for Older Adults at the Point of Care.

A National Initiative to Advance Cost Information in Shared Decision Making for Serious Health Conditions

2021-2022

Funder: The John A. Hartford Foundation

The John A. Hartford Foundation awarded a planning grant to FAIR Health to develop price-informed shared decision-making tools for conditions that affect older adults. The initiative, guided by a multi-stakeholder project advisory board, resulted in the following:

• A February 2022 FAIR Health report on a nationwide study that sought to determine the needs of older adults and their caregivers/care partners when navigating the healthcare system and making healthcare decisions.
• The September 2022 launch of a new Older Adults section on fairhealthconsumer.org, called FAIR Health for Older Adults. The section added five new decision aids combining clinical and cost information related to the care of older adults: early-stage breast cancer, fast-growing prostate cancer, spinal stenosis, hip osteoarthritis and hip replacement. FAIR Health also launched three additional FH Total Treatment Cost tools highlighting the range of costs associated with conditions particularly relevant to an older population: Alzheimer’s disease/dementia, heart failure and major depression.

Evaluative findings of the tools’ perceived utility and value among relevant patient and caregiver populations were published in a February 2023 report.

An Initiative to Advance Shared Decision Making for Patients of Color (New York Health Foundation)

2021-2022

Funder: The New York Health Foundation

With a generous grant from the New York Health Foundation, FAIR Health collaborated with Chima Ndumele, PhD, MPH, Chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Yale School of Public Health and FAIR Health Academic Advisory Board member, to create and disseminate decision aids that combine both clinical and cost information for conditions pertinent to patients of color: uterine fibroids, type 2 diabetes and slow-growing prostate cancer.

The decision aids launched in May 2022 on both the FAIR Health Consumer website and FAIR Health’s provider-facing website, fairhealthprovider.org. Patients of color were involved in the project’s design, management and execution. Diverse stakeholders—including community-based organizations and patient groups—helped disseminate the tools.

Program findings were published in a November 2022 report.

Provider-Oriented Shared Decision-Making Initiative

2020-2021

Funder: The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation

With a generous grant from The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, FAIR Health developed a clinician-oriented educational website, FAIR Health Provider (fairhealthprovider.org). The website provides educational shared decision-making resources for providers and clinicians who serve older adults, including those with serious illnesses, and minority communities. FAIR Health Provider was developed with the significant input of experts in palliative care and shared decision making, and continues to be updated with new tools and content for other patient populations.

Program findings were published in a February 2022 report.

Shared Decision Making—Palliative Care

2019-2020

Funder: The New York Community Trust

Under an 18-month grant from The New York Community Trust, FAIR Health developed and launched on the FAIR Health Consumer website shared decision-making tools that combine both clinical and cost information for a set of palliative care-related scenarios. Three decision aids were launched in March 2020: dialysis, nutrition options and ventilator options, all for people with serious illnesses. Program findings from the project were published in a December 2020 brief on shared decision-making.

Health Insurance Literacy and Transparency Initiatives

FAIR Health has undertaken several initiatives to improve consumer access to and understanding of information regarding costs of care. These initiatives also have sought to increase health insurance literacy, the ability to use information about health insurance to make informed decisions, and financial health literacy.

FH® Learn, Access and Understand Navigation of Choices in Healthcare (LAUNCH) Español

2021-2022

Funder: The New York Community Trust

With a grant from The New York Community Trust, FAIR Health implemented FH Learn, Access and Understand Navigation of Choices in Healthcare (LAUNCH) Español (2021-2022), an educational initiative to support health insurance literacy among bilingual Hispanic and Latino communities in the New York metropolitan area by disseminating the free FH® Consumer Classroom mobile app offered in both English and Spanish on iOS.

FH Consumer Classroom provides FAIR Health’s comprehensive educational information in a concise and accessible format: articles, videos, a glossary and links to FAIR Health’s medical and dental cost lookup tools on fairhealthconsumer.org.

FH LAUNCH Español raised awareness of the educational app through a Spanish-language campaign developed in collaboration with a creative agency serving Hispanic and Latino communities, and through collaborations with organizations serving Spanish-speaking and bilingual communities.

Read FAIR Health’s July 2022 report with project findings here.

NY HOST Español (Healthcare Online Shopping Tool)

2017-2019

Funder: The New York Community Trust

With an 18-month grant from The New York Community Trust, FAIR Health created and launched a Spanish-language, mobile-optimized version of YouCanPlanForThis.org, our innovative consumer cost transparency and education website, to address the needs of New York City’s Spanish-speaking and bilingual healthcare consumers. The project included the translation of the You Can Plan for This site and a culturally relevant campaign designed to reach New York City’s Spanish-speaking and bilingual population through community events, media support and collaborative efforts with Latino and Hispanic community organizations.

New York Healthcare Online Shopping Tool (NY HOST)

2015-2018

Funder: The New York Health Foundation

NY HOST was a three-year phased initiative funded by the New York Health Foundation to help New Yorkers manage costs and compare providers based on price and quality indicators for frequently performed procedures. This statewide initiative resulted in the state’s first free provider price and quality transparency website, YouCanPlanForThis.org, which offers:

• Locally specific estimates of the “allowed” (i.e., negotiated in-network) amounts for medical procedures based on average contracted in-network rates;
• Estimates of providers’ charges in local markets for out-of-network services or those not covered by insurance;
• Itemized and total price information (both in- and out-of-network) for certain common conditions and procedures;
• For 100 commonly performed procedures in New York State, a listing of thousands of healthcare providers with detailed information about the providers’ prices and practices; and
• For a subset of hospitals in four areas of New York State (Albany, Buffalo, Syracuse and Westchester), pricing for a set of outpatient procedures and various quality metrics.

The website was promoted through a robust statewide creative campaign, “You Can Plan for This.”

Engage Health CT

2016-2017

Funder: Connecticut Health Foundation

Engage Health CT, funded by the Connecticut Health Foundation, was an initiative that involved the development and dissemination of the FH® Cost Lookup CT/FH® CC Salud CT, a free mobile app in English and Spanish designed to provide education about health insurance literacy and support healthcare engagement among Connecticut residents. The app allowed consumers to estimate the costs of medical and dental services performed in Connecticut and neighboring states, offered educational articles that explained health insurance and directed users to community resources.

Healthcare Engagement for Latino Populations (HELP)

2015-2016

Funder: The New York Community Trust

Funded by The New York Community Trust, FAIR Health developed and promoted a Spanish-language mobile app to help New York City’s Hispanic population estimate healthcare costs and learn about health insurance. FH® CCSalud (FH Calculadora de Costos de Salud) featured medical and dental cost lookup tools, educational content and links to external resources. Promoted through community events and digital communications, HELP generated a significant number of mobile app downloads.

Grant-Funded Research Initiatives

FAIR Health works with academics, healthcare institutions, government agencies and other researchers to explore the use of our data in health systems research on a wide range of topics—for example, how policy change affects healthcare costs and utilization.

Understanding Gaps in Care and Reimbursement for Diverse Populations with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias: A Claims-Based Analysis

2023-2024

Funder: Johns Hopkins University Hopkins Economics of Alzheimer’s Disease & Services [HEADS] Center of the National Institute on Aging

FAIR Health, in collaboration with Jevay Grooms, PhD, of Howard University, undertook a 12-month economic study on Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) under a pilot grant awarded by the Hopkins Economics of Alzheimer’s Disease & Services (HEADS) Center of the National Institute on Aging. The HEADS Center advances and implements new research on ADRD and is part of the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. Grants awarded by the HEADS Center are intended to identify the care needs of patients with ADRD and the economic consequences, as well as to examine the accessibility, quality, affordability and equity of ADRD care.

Dr. Grooms and FAIR Health’s economic and data scientists examined claim dates of service from 2016 to 2023, using commercial data from the FAIR Health National Private Insurance Claims (FH NPIC®) database to identify costs of ADRD care and define patient populations by geographic and demographic factors.

Study results, which offer insights into the cost and utilization patterns of ADRD care, were published in a June 2024 report.

A Claims Analysis to Examine How Telehealth Can Reduce Barriers to Care

2023

Funder: Connecticut Health Foundation

The Connecticut Health Foundation (CT Health) awarded FAIR Health a President’s Discretionary Grant (2023) to undertake a data study regarding how telehealth may reduce barriers to healthcare for people of color in Connecticut.

The one-year data study analyzed claims from Connecticut for both telehealth services and corresponding in-person services to assess outcomes and utilization of telehealth services. The study used the FH NPIC database to examine utilization of and outcomes pertaining to telehealth services in Connecticut. The study aligned with CT Health’s mission of achieving equity in health and built upon FAIR Health’s seminal analyses of telehealth utilization.

Read FAIR Health’s September 2023 study report here.

FAIR Health Collaboration with West Health and Johns Hopkins University

2020

Funder: West Health

FAIR Health partnered with West Health to leverage its data assets to examine COVID-19 patient comorbidities, risk factors and outcomes. This project was undertaken with Marty Makary, MD, MPH, Professor of Surgery at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

In 2020, FAIR Health, West Health and Dr. Makary collaborated on rigorous data analysis. Using the FH NPIC database, the analysis identified risk factors, comorbidities and associated outcomes of those diagnosed with COVID-19, with an emphasis on older adult populations. Dr. Makary oversaw a parallel analysis of Medicare data, to study medications hypothesized to be therapeutic agents for COVID-19.

The study, detailed in this November 2020 report, yielded actionable insights that were used to inform clinical and policy solutions regarding those at risk for severe morbidity and mortality due to COVID-19, particularly those with intellectual and developmental disabilities, thereby informing prevention, treatment and vaccine distribution protocols.