Editor & Author
Elena Bellini
Lead Editor, CareCostIndex
MPH, Health Policy & Management · Based in Brooklyn, NY
About Elena
Elena leads editorial direction for CareCostIndex. Day to day, that means reviewing every procedure overview before it goes live, fact-checking cost figures against primary CMS and hospital price-transparency files, approving guide drafts from contributing writers, and keeping the methodology page current as new federal rules or state APCD datasets come online.
Before launching CareCostIndex in 2024, Elena spent seven years at a mid-sized commercial health insurer, analyzing medical claims data and building the cost-transparency tools that frontline member-services reps used when a policyholder called in a panic about a hospital bill. The pattern she saw every day — patients facing near-identical procedures being quoted prices that differed by a factor of eight inside the same metro area — is what eventually convinced her to leave the payer side and publish the numbers openly.
Elena holds an MPH in Health Policy & Management from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, and an undergraduate degree in Economics from Fordham University. She has written for trade publications on hospital chargemaster practices, the federal Hospital Price Transparency rule’s first-year compliance data, and the Medicare Advantage prior-authorization market. She reads CMS proposed rules for leisure. Not really for leisure — but close.
Editorial responsibilities
- Final sign-off on every cost figure published on the site
- Review of every long-form guide before publication
- Quarterly review of procedure overview pages against the most recent CMS MPFS and hospital MRF releases
- Correction handling and reader-report triage within 7 business days
- Selection and onboarding of contributing medical reviewers (see Editorial Standards)
Areas of focus
- Hospital Price Transparency rule compliance and MRF interpretation
- Medicare Physician Fee Schedule and OPPS/ASC rate analysis
- Commercial-plan prior authorization and step therapy cost impact
- Self-pay / cash-pay negotiation and medical-bill auditing
- Federal No Surprises Act and state surprise-billing laws
What we do not do
We do not diagnose, recommend specific providers, refer patients, or sell cost-estimate reports. We do not accept payment, promotional consideration, or sponsored coverage from hospitals, insurers, pharmaceutical companies, or device manufacturers. Advertising displayed on the site is served by Google AdSense and is clearly marked. See our Editorial Standards for the full conflict-of-interest policy.
Philosophy
“A cost-transparency page that doesn’t link back to a primary source is an opinion. A cost figure that can’t be traced to a CMS file or a hospital’s own MRF is gossip. We don’t publish gossip.”
Corrections & feedback
If a cost figure on the site doesn’t match what a provider has quoted you, or if a methodology note needs updating, please email editor@carecostindex.com. Corrections are the single most important input to the next revision — every reader-reported discrepancy is logged, investigated, and either applied or responded to with a reason within 7 business days.