DENVER — When Katie Salmon’s family member needed a medical procedure that their insurance wouldn’t cover, the family found themselves in a tiring search.
“It involved calling individual hospitals’ billing departments, trying to get individual price estimates,” said Salmon, who graduated from Palmer Ridge High School in Monument, Colo.
Salmon, who is now in college out of state, thought there had to be a better way. So she contacted her high school friend, Josh Nokka, with an idea.
The pair created a website called Price Medic, which aggregates price data from hospitals across the state and provides users with a comparison of the cost of common medical procedures at hospitals across the state.
“You’re able to just compare the price from hospital to hospital,” Nokka said.
The website, which launched in mid-August only in Colorado, has seen 15,000 users, Nokka said.
“Price Medic is a tool for Americans to price shop their healthcare and get an idea of what the cost for a service or procedure will be,” he said.
The website only compares non-insurance cash costs for procedures at hospitals in the state. A federal rule that kicked in at the beginning of this year, requires hospitals to post lists of their prices for medical procedures for public consumption.
Nokka and Salmon hope to add more data when a new federal rule kicks in next year, requiring most insurance providers to make their in-network negotiated rates with providers available.
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