My insurer (Anthem Blue Cross) will give me prices if I give them a procedure code and a billing zip code.
Getting the procedure code and a billing zip code is another story though. When I call hospitals and doctor offices they often have no clue and will refer me to their billing department who then claims they need more information in order to know what procedure code and billing zip they'll be needing. Call back the hospital and doctor office to get the information that the billing office says they need and 'round and 'round we go. It's very frustrating.
Safeway's doing great work and genuinely innovating on multiple fronts. Our startup (URL in my profile) is working on this part of it; great to hear that people are interested.
The procedure code part of it is challenging. We're using a combination of plain-English descriptions of the various codes and some predictive modeling to try to get you to the right code. We can't guarantee anything there, but we're hoping we can narrow it down to a small subset and give you a pretty good idea of what your out-of-pocket is going to be.
Hell, if you can automate medical transcription, forget making a consumer website, sell it to hospitals and insurers. That's a whole industry unto itself.
If the price of medical care were readily available, I believe the health care "crisis," as it has been called, would be considerably less of an issue. Once care givers responded to the transparency, prices would drop. Additionally, individuals would be able to determine the level of risk associated with purchasing more affordable high deductible insurance. Currently, most people just pick the insurance product that gives them the lowest deductible, never stopping to consider that the aggregate cost of their routine visits may amount to less than the difference between high and low deductible coverage.
Christ onna bike, finally someone arm-twisted an insurer to release price information. Now was that so hard?