Resources

Guardian Nurses recommends these reliable healthcare websites to patients and their families

When doing research on the internet, make sure you are accessing the websites of organizations you can trust. On this page, Guardian Nurses provides links to some of the reliable healthcare websites we recommend for patients and their families who are struggling with the healthcare system. These organizations provide help and information to patients about diagnoses, medications, facilities, and financial assistance for medications.

Information about Diseases and Treatments

There are thousands of websites available for healthcare consumers to explore. We offer these to get you started with solid, proven information.

Mayo Clinic
World-renowned integrated healthcare system based in Minnesota with branches in Arizona and Florida. Information available on their 3 main websites provides easy-to-understand information and tools for patients and families.

Family Doctor
Easy to read website offering health information for the whole family. Offers tools like drug information, search by symptom, calculators and a dictionary.

National Cancer Institute
Sponsored by the National Institute of Health, our country’s medical research agency, the NCI website offers information on all things cancer — cancer topics, clinical trials, cancer statistics, research and funding and news.

Information about Hospitals, Nursing Homes and Rehab Centers

Use these sites to gain background information on facilities being considered. While consumer-friendly, you still may want to speak with a nurse advocate to help you decipher the information.

Nursing Home Compare
Sponsored by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), this Medicare site provides detailed information about the past performance of every Medicare and Medicaid certified nursing home in the country.

Note: SNF = skilled nursing facility; Subacute Rehab = skilled nursing facility with some beds dedicated for patients needing short-term rehab

Hospital Compare
This website provides information on how well hospitals care for patients with certain medical conditions or surgical procedures based on costs, quality of care and the number of patients treated. This information will help you compare the quality of care that hospitals provide.

Assistance with Prescription Drug Costs

Partnership for Prescription Assistance
This website offer a single point of access to more than 475 public and private programs, including nearly 200 offered by pharmaceutical companies.

Patient Advocacy

National Patient Advocate Foundation
A national non-profit organization providing the patient voice in improving access to, and reimbursement for, high-quality healthcare through regulatory and legislative reform at the state and federal levels.

Patient Advocate Foundation
Companion agency to NPAF, this group provides professional case management services to patients facing barriers to healthcare access for chronic and disabling disease, medical debt crisis and employment-related issues at no cost.

Price Transparency/Costs

Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council
Website of the independent state agency in Pennsylvania responsible for addressing the problem of escalating health costs, ensuring the quality of health care, and increasing access regardless of ability to pay. Offers reports, sometimes dated, on topics like hospital-acquired infections, hospital performance, surgical rates, etc.

Healthcare Bluebook
Healthcare Bluebook is a rational healthcare marketplace where informed consumers can save money by choosing to get their care from thousands of Fair Price providers.

Clear Health Costs
A site founded on the mission of bringing transparency to the health-care marketplace.  A crowdsourcing project, individual consumers are encouraged to enter the prices that they’ve paid for procedures, treatments, visits, etc.  “An informed consumer can make better, more thoughtful choices about their healthcare.”

Guroo
The Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI), an independent, non-partisan, non-profit organization launched this consumer-focused website that provides national, state and local cost information for common health conditions and services using claims from multiple insurers for more than 40 million insured individuals – numbers that no one else has. The new website is free and accessible to everyone, regardless of whether they have insurance or who their insurer is.