eHealth Announces Partnership With Healthcare Blue Book to Bring Health Insurance and Healthcare Price Transparency to Consumers
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA, Apr 14, 2010 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) --eHealth, Inc. (NASDAQ: EHTH), parent company of eHealthInsurance.com, the leading online source of health insurance for individuals, families, and small businesses, today announced a partnership with Healthcare Blue Book, the leading online provider of fair healthcare pricing information for consumers in their markets.
The Healthcare Blue Book (www.healthcarebluebook.com) was established to provide consumers with the knowledge they need to get fair prices for their healthcare and is used by consumers who pay for their own healthcare, have high deductible health insurance plans, or need services that their insurance company does not fully cover. The consumer pricing guide helps consumers find fair prices for surgeries, hospital stays, doctor visits, medical tests and much more.
The eHealth and Healthcare Blue Book partnership will combine the two companies' core strengths to deliver a one-stop shop for purchasing fairly priced health insurance along with unbiased healthcare pricing information. The free online platform will help consumers get the most value from the plans they purchase by enabling them to:
-- Compare, research and purchase online over 10,000 health insurance
products from over 180 carriers;
-- Obtain personal assistance from the eHealthInsurance customer care
center, staffed 24/7 with licensed health insurance agents; and
-- Get fair, upfront pricing data for hundreds of healthcare services and
products throughout the nation.
"eHealth and Healthcare Blue Book are both dedicated to educating consumers about how to manage and pay for high quality health care," says Dr. Jeffrey Rice, Healthcare Blue Book founder. "We are excited because this partnership will help our consumers find the health insurance they need at prices they can afford."
"Just as eHealth was the first company to bring pricing transparency to the health insurance industry, Healthcare Blue Book is doing the same for healthcare and provider pricing," said Bruce Telkamp, eHealth's Executive Vice President of Business and Corporate Development. "Consumers can use eHealth's and Healthcare Blue Book's free online platforms to realize powerful health insurance and healthcare savings, and we are proud to be joining our capabilities on www.healthcarebluebook.com for the benefit of consumers nationwide."
About Healthcare Blue Book.com Begun by a team of E-Health experts, Healthcarebluebook.com is dedicated to helping people better manage their healthcare by providing them with the knowledge and tools they need to shop for and receive a fair price for their healthcare services. The Healthcare Blue Book fair price is based on the negotiated price that health plans pay to their network providers for a service in a specific market. The Healthcare Blue Book also offers a customized application to employers to provide employees and their dependents with information about what in-network providers charge for medical services. The Healthcare Blue Book helps create educated employees who can do a better job of managing their health at a price they can afford.
About eHealth eHealth, Inc. (NASDAQ: EHTH) is the parent company of eHealthInsurance, the nation's leading online source of health insurance for individuals, families and small businesses. Through the company's website, http://www.eHealthInsurance.com, consumers can get quotes from leading health insurance carriers, compare plans side by side, and apply for and purchase health insurance. eHealthInsurance offers thousands of health plans underwritten by more than 180 of the nation's leading health insurance companies. eHealthInsurance is licensed to sell health insurance in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, making it the ideal model of a successful, high-functioning health insurance exchange. Through its eCommerce On-Demand solution (eOD), www.ehealth.com/eOD, eHealth is also a leading provider of on-demand e-commerce software services. eHealth's eOD platform provides a suite of hosted solutions that enable health plan providers and resellers to market and distribute products online. eHealth's eCommerce On-Demand solution is currently available to health plan providers in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. eHealthInsurance and eHealth are registered trademarks of eHealthInsurance Services, Inc.
Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements as defined within the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These include statements regarding the ability of the partnership to offer an online platform that enables consumers to purchase health insurance and obtain healthcare pricing information and the value and benefits of such platform to consumers. These forward-looking statements are inherently subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the statements made, including risks associated with the implementation of the platform; the attractiveness of the platform as a source of health insurance and healthcare pricing information; user experience on the platform, the performance, reliability and availability of the platform and underlying network infrastructure; system failures, malfunctions, bugs or capacity constraints; ecommerce security risks; and partner system failure or process breakdown. Other factors that could cause results to differ are described in eHealth's most recent periodic report as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and available on the investor relations page of eHealth's website at www.ehealthinsurance.com and on the Securities and Exchange Commission's website at www.sec.gov. eHealth does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement to conform the statement to actual results or changes in expectations.
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For Healthcare Blue Book inquiries, please contact:
Jeffrey Rice, MD
Healthcare Blue Book
615-377-6653
staff@HealthcareBlueBook.com
OR
Aimee Stern
Stern Communications
aimee@sterncommdc.com
202-744-5004
For eHealth inquiries, please contact:
Nate Purpura
eHealth, Inc.
650-210-3115
nate.purpura@ehealth.comSOURCE: eHealth, Inc.
mailto:staff@HealthcareBlueBook.com
mailto:aimee@sterncommdc.com
mailto:nate.purpura@ehealth.com