WASHINGTON — Anyone who has ever had a medical procedure knows how difficult it is to predict what it will cost. A new data tool can empower patients to head off unexpected bills.
Launched Tuesday, Amino lets patients plug in their doctors and insurance companies, before having medical procedures.
Using hundreds of millions of recent insurance claims, the site’s pricing database covers about 550,000 physicians, 129 insurance companies and 49 procedures.
“When we go consume health care we get a stack of bills, sometimes from the hospital, from the anesthesiologist, (and) from the provider, the surgeon, for example,” said David Vivero, CEO and co-founder of Amino, in an interview with USA Today.
Health care costs can vary, even within a hospital, because of negotiations between insurance companies and health care providers.
“What we’ve been able to do is assemble the entire cost,” said Vivero. “For example, rehab, and postoperative follow-up, so people understand the total cost for them.”
Having the information available, patients can choose to shop for lower-priced doctors, or decide when to have a procedure, based on their insurance plan’s deductible.
