Looking for how much a particular procedure, test or service should cost? The Healthcare Bluebook offers consumers an opportunity to search for what the “fair price” of any healthcare service is based on their zip code. (If you don’t input a zip code, it provides the national average.) The people behind the site describe themselves as “a diverse team of clinicians, healthcare experts, strategists and technologists dedicated to transforming healthcare with transparency.” The site is helpful when you want to provide an approximate cost of a procedure, test or other service in a story.
All vaccines that the CDC recommends are included in the Vaccines for Children program, and these prices are listed on the CDC website. The price list includes a separate chart for vaccines recommended for adults and for flu vaccines. More importantly for reporters, the charts also provide private sector vaccine prices as well.
Tools help reporters follow tax dollars that fund medical research
Grants awarded by the federal department of Health and Human Services can be searched using the TAGGS tool, for Tracking Accountability in Government Grants. You can search for a topic or by state, institution and the name of the investigator.
The National Institutes of Health has a grant searching tool called RePORTER (Research Online Grant Reporting Tools). In addition to the keyword search you can search by funding category, location, and the names of investigators.