Network Provides Healthcare Pricing Data

The company is focused on selling the service through insurance brokers, who will offer it to employers as an alternative to traditional health insurance. The service is priced at $39 per month for individuals, and $54 for a family. It has no exclusion for medical history or age, and membership can be paid monthly.

Healthcare providers using the service save money because it's not insurance, and therefore there's no paperwork. There are no claims forms, referral or pre-authorization requirements, long waits for payment or denials, and therefore no need for lengthy appeals.

The market for the service is the more than 500,000 households in the New York metropolitan area that have annual incomes of $60,000 or more but are not insured, according to the 2009 US Current Population Study, as cited by Transparent Health Group. These people are caught in the middle of healthcare costs -- they're middle-class, with income too great to qualify for government assistance, but not high enough to pay for insurance, the company said.

Will national healthcare reform put Transparent Health Network out of business? President Barack Obama's health reform goals include making it a requirement that all Americans buy health insurance.

"Our business philosophy is that if people can get health insurance, they should," Rieger said. "However, there are currently a large number of people who either cannot afford, or do not have access to, health insurance. Transparent Health Network is a solution for these working uninsured."

He added, "We don't know what is going to happen with health care reform. However, our reading of the current house and senate bills leads us to believe that a significant portion of the middle-class working uninsured will remain as they are. Even if this is not the case, the changes are unlikely to take effect until 2013 or beyond, and so we have the opportunity to serve the uninsured in the interim."

The service is available in New York City, and neighboring Westchester and Long Island, as well as Essex County in New Jersey, with plans to expand to Hudson, Passaic, and Bergen counties in New Jersey, as well as the metro Atlanta region.