Our Story
As a pioneer in consumer advocacy, CSS was among the first to rate healthcare and other service providers, giving consumers access to vital information. Today, we continue to innovate while staying true to our core principles—rejecting advertising and maintaining independence—so users can be confident in our unbiased insights.
Over 50 Years of Consumer-Driven Work
CSS was founded on a simple yet powerful idea: consumers deserve access to independent, unbiased information to make informed decisions. While ratings are standard today in an era of instant information, that wasn’t the case in 1974, when much of the information we now take for granted was unavailable to the public. Explore key milestones in our journey below.
- 1974Center for the Study of Services is founded to “Conduct studies on the quality of consumer services and other key issues, and to make these findings available to the public, government agencies, and other stakeholders to promote education and informed discussion.”
- 1976The first edition of Consumers’ Checkbook is published, providing Washington D.C. consumers with valuable information on local primary care physicians, dentists, and nursing homes. Quality ratings were gathered through consumer surveys and innovative methods, including consulting clergy members about nursing homes and emergency medical technicians about emergency rooms.
- 1979The first edition of the Guide to Health Plans is published, helping federal employees and annuitants compare Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) plans based on estimated yearly cost—premium plus expected out-of-pocket healthcare expenses.
- 1994CSS developed and implemented the first nationwide survey of health plan members for public reporting by surveying 150,000 members of 265 health plans participating in the FEHB program.
- 1996Checkbook.org launched giving consumers access to ratings, advice, and price information anytime, anywhere
- 1999CSS becomes a National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) approved vendor to conduct CAHPS member experience survey.
- 2006CSS leads the charge to make provider-identified Medicare claims data available to researchers to help assess provider performance.
- 2009CSS organizes a joint collaborative bringing together health plans, community collaboratives, medical associations, to measure and publicly report on patient experience with individual providers in a rigorous manner.
- 2015CSS releases a report on surgical outcomes using Medicare claims data to compare surgeons across 8 different procedures.
- 2015CSS is engaged by the District of Columbia to provide a health plan comparison tool allowing individuals enrolling in a health plan through the DC Exchange to compare Qualified Health Plans based on cost.
- 2024CSS celebrates its 50th anniversary.
- TodayCSS continues to develop innovative consumer tools and provide valuable advice to tackle today’s unique challenges, while also serving as a trusted leader in survey research surveying millions of people annually to support public reporting and pay-for-performance efforts.
