Instead of sitting back and waiting for the government, providers and insurers to publish meaningful price data to help consumers make informed decisions about value, we developed a solution that can help consumers today. In July, we launched an early release of www.OutofPocket.com, a platform for collecting and sharing price information for routine health care services. This online resource, OutofPocket.com, enables consumers to share price information that can help others find the best value. Our objective was to collect early feedback, build awareness for the new website, and enable people to start sharing price information to help others find the best value. While the website is still evolving, we strongly believe that launching OutofPocket is better than doing nothing. OutofPocket is available today for consumers to start collecting and sharing true prices for health care services.
To everyone that sent us comments - thank you for taking the time to review our website and send us your feedback. We consider your feedback a gift.
Over the next couple of months we will be working on the next release of the website. Our #1 goal is when you search on OutofPocket.com, you will always have relevant content returned in the search results.
Some of the features we are working on include
1. enhance the wizard to make it easier for you to post you visits/prices/recommendations
2. allow users to rate search results and add their recommendations to a provider already in the directory
3. invite providers that disclose pricing to include their services/prices in the directory
4. include additional Government CMS Medicare payment data
5. improve the dislay of search results to identify consumer-generated-content, provider price list, and Medicare data.
We invite you to continue adding your visits and price information to the directory. If enough people participate to share prices, consumers will have created a very powerful pricing directory. Thank you for all that you do to help make this grassroots initiative successful.