This project was developed by Team Py-oneers to bridge the information gap regarding the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Student Health Insurance Plan (SHIP). Despite the significant annual cost of approximately $2,697, many students remain unaware of the specific services and benefits included in their coverage.
This repository contains a suite of Python-based tools designed to analyze student needs, provide transparency on medical costs, and demystify complex insurance terminology.
- Joanna Chang (joannac2@andrew.cmu.edu)
- Vashishth Doshi (vbd@andrew.cmu.edu)
- Zarina Davletova (zdavleto@andrew.cmu.edu)
- Zhuoyuan Yang (zhuoyuay@andrew.cmu.edu)
This module focuses on the research phase of the project, analyzing how students interact with health insurance.
- Functionality: Reads enrollment data and survey responses to generate visual insights.
- Visualizations: Includes bar charts of CMU enrollment categories and pie charts illustrating student demographics, insurance types, and satisfaction levels.
- Data Sources: University Health Center records and original survey data (CSV).
An interactive tool that allows users to compare real-world medical costs with their insurance coverage.
- Mode 1: Medical Cost Lookup: Fetches live data via API from CMS.gov for providers in the Pittsburgh area (Zip 152). It displays the "Billed Amount" vs. the "Medicare Allowed Amount".
- Mode 2: Highmark Coverage Navigation: Allows users to browse insurance categories to see specific network coverage details.
- Mode 3: Search & Compare: Enables keyword searching for health services to view both insurance coverage and average Medicare costs simultaneously.
A comprehensive guide to understanding the "how-to" of insurance and the language used in policies.
- Section A: Quick Contacts: Provides immediate contact information for SHIP enrollment, coverage, and billing queries.
- Section B: FAQ Portal: An interactive loop where users can select common questions regarding CMU SHIP and receive detailed answers.
- Section C: Terminology Search: Uses web scraping to pull health insurance definitions from CMS.gov. Users can input terms, and the program uses regular expressions to find and display definitions.
- Data Handling:
pandas,json - Web Scraping & APIs:
BeautifulSoup,requests - Data Visualization:
matplotlib.pyplot,plotly.express,plotly.io - Logic & Processing:
re(Regular Expressions),concurrent.futures(Multi-threading)
- CMS.gov: Real-time pricing and insurance terminology.
- Highmark: Plan-specific coverage and co-payment tables.
- CMU SHIP Website: Policy FAQs and contact directories.
- Survey Data: Custom-collected student experience data.