As a trend, healthcare price transparency has started off strong this year. In a recent interview, price transparency tool Medlio's CEO David Brooks told MobiHealthNews people are no longer on preferred provider organization plans as much as they have been in the past. As a result, instead of simply paying a copay, users are now on high deductible health plans and are starting to care more about the prices of medical services.
“We have this fundamental problem in healthcare — it’s always been the case where we have a buyer-seller service, where neither party know what the cost of that service is,” Brooks said. “Now, this is, at least for the last 30 years, how it’s always been in healthcare, and up until recently, it hasn’t been a big deal. And the reason is [that] patients really weren’t responsible for the full brunt of the cost..”
Although a lost of news has broken recently about price transparency companies -- at least four companies have announced new features or launches this year -- some companies, like Castlight have been working in this space for much longer. These eight companies all offer price transparency services.
Medlio has launched an app that will act as a virtual insurance card and enables users to see their health insurance benefits information, including as co-pays and deductible balances; a map to find doctors, hospitals and pharmacies near the user’s location; an appointment check-in service on the app; and another portal to pay for appointments. The company's cost transparency tool, called Common Cents, has not launched yet.
Brooks also hopes to one day replace the merchant services that are currently in place at doctor’s offices through a partnership with companies like Paypal or Square and monetize Medlio through transactional fees. While these merchant services probably charge doctors three to five percent in transaction costs, Brooks estimates if Medlio had a partner, he could charge three percent, if not less.
Unlike Medlio, Healthcare Blue Book is already offering users a cost transparency tool for visits, procedures, and medications. The company offers their services online and via iOS and Android apps. The company offers a free version of its search tool, which is available for anyone to use by visiting the company’s website and entering in a zip code, and a premium version, which is available to consumers only via their health plan or employer.
Healthcare Blue Book also uses an algorithm to not only offer various prices for services, but also provides a "fair price" that service. Earlier this month, the company raised $7 million from a single, strategic investor, The Martin Companies, which will be used for scale and growth.
HealthSparq is a subsidiary of health system Cambia Health. The company offers users an online platform to shop for healthcare services. The company partners with small, regional health plans to offer the plan’s members comparison shopping on an online platform. It uses the plan’s existing data to show users various costs and times involved with different procedures, and also shows the price and quality of different providers. Users who want to pay out-of-pocket can use a calculator that HealthSparq also offers.
The company also recently acquired ClarusHealth Solutions, an online provider search tool, which brought HealthSparq's total number of health plans from 20 to 60, a total of 60 million consumer users.
Although the company only offers a web platform, it uses responsive design to make the tools accessible on mobile devices.
UnitedHealthcare, an insurer, launched a cost transparency tool for their members along with an appointment booking system, which the company announced at CES this year.
The system, which is called myEasyBook, is geared towards users of high-deductible healthcare plans, for instance those linked to Health Savings Accounts or Health Reimbursement Accounts. These users can compare the costs of different available providers in their network.
The software calculates the out-of-pocket price to the user based on his or her insurance information and searches multiple providers by condition.
Although Castlight, a healthcare management system, hasn't made news recently, it is arguably one of the biggest price transparency companies in the space and has been expected to IPO for a few years now.
Castlight Health offers users a online platform and iOS and Android app to search for the prices of medical services. Some of Castlight's customers include Kraft Foods Group, Life Technologies, Honeywell, CVS Caremark, and Liberty Mutual.
PokitDok, founded in 2011, launched its iOS app in December 2012. The app, which is also available as an online service, allows users to find healthcare providers in their area and do a price comparison of different price quotes. If a provider doesn’t have prices listed, users can fill out a form describing their medical needs and payment options — cash, insurance, or healthcare savings account — and get a quote from the provider.
The company makes a point of including as many types of care providers as they can, including acupuncturists and homeopathic practitioners. Users can also rate their experiences with providers publicly on the app.
Rock Health graduate HealthinReach is a free online platform that aims to help patients find the low prices from dentists and doctors and book appointments online. The company said it offers descriptions and prices for nearly 50,000 specific procedures and has so far seen 3 million users on the website.
GoodRx is different from the others, because this company offers cost transparency about medications instead of medical services. The company launched their transparency tool in 2012 and partnered with Aetna in June of 2012 to provide data to developers looking to build apps with APIs managed by Aetna.
To use the app, people enter in the name of the prescription they plan to purchase along with their zip code. The app then shows a list and map of prices for the brand name and generic versions of the drug the user is seeking — both from local brick-and-mortar pharmacies as well as mail order ones. The app also offers refill reminders and price alerts.
