Dive Brief:
- This week, Amino unveiled new tools so consumers can search for healthcare costs on 49 medical services, compare costs in their region and find payment estimates.
- Cost estimates can be found on 550,000 physicians and 129 insurance companies through the new tools.
- The San Francisco-based company launched last October and said it would roll out more healthcare cost estimates.
Dive Insight:
"Everyone deserves to know the facts that make a difference in health care, often our largest and most important investment each year, but gaining access to pricing information has proven incredibly difficult. Industry efforts at price transparency have missed the mark," said David Vivero, CEO and co-founder of Amino. "We've spent months surveying health care consumers and looking into the digital paper trail of health care within our database to help people answer not only 'where can I get care?' but also 'how much will this cost?' Knowing what's been billed for specific procedures and specific doctors gives everyone confidence in a world where it's nearly impossible to find out how much you'll owe, until you get the bill weeks later."
The company was recently certified by CMS to use national, physical level Medicare data as the first for-profit "qualified entity," and it has also formed a consensus based entity approved by CMS to define new standards in healthcare quality measurement aimed at helping people make better health care decisions.
Amino's cost estimates are based on the company's insurance claims database, which shows the dollar amounts health insurance companies have paid care providers for select procedures and services in the recent past resulting in a total of more than 64 million cost estimates.
The company stated is would be adding new data sources.