Friday, March 26, 2010

Car Buying Resources

Looking to buy a car? Here's a list of resources for you to consult before stepping foot at a car showroom:

Friday, March 5, 2010

Resources for Medical Care

Are you interested in the background of your medical care provider or institution? Do you want to know what the performance records of your doctor or hospital are? Are you keen to find out whether your doctor has been disciplined or subject to malpractice proceedings? Or you wonder whether your physician or hospital is charging you a fair price for your medical procedure?

Here is a roundup of useful resources for researching into pricing for medical procedures or doing background checks on your medical care provider or institution:
  • Price Doc
    Search and compare pricing of various medical procedures across medical specialties, etc.

  • Vitals
    Database of Doctors. Allows you to do a background check on your physician, as well as assist you in finding a physician or specialist using the criteria that you specify.

  • Health Grades
    Provides ratings and performance data (including malpractice records on physicians, hospitals and nursing homes.

  • Why Not The Best?
    Funded by the Commonwealth Fund, this non-profit resource enables you to review and compare the performance of U.S. hospitals on measures of evidence-based care, patient experience, readmission and mortality rates, and costs with peer organizations and national benchmarks.

Resources for Doing A Background Check on Yourself or Others

Ever wanted to do a background check on others? Or doing one on yourself?

LifeHacker has an excellent post, Doing A Total Background Check On Yourself, with links to all the reporting bureaus that track every aspect of a person's life.

It can be scary, yet enlightening experience to find out what others are tracking about you.

Link: Doing A Total Background Check On Yourself

Useful Real Estate Resources

Roundup of useful real estate resources:

Searches:
  • Neighborhood Scout (good place to start for researching neighborhoods. Limited free service. Crime stats, etc are only available in the premium service).
  • Trulia.com (useful free site to search for listings, comps, etc)

Advice:

See also my previous blog postings: