A Giant Leap In The Quest For Clear Health Costs? PokitDok Offers An API To Parse Pricing

California-based startup PokitDok is adding another tool in its quest to provide clear healthcare costs to patients.  Today it will unveil its API, “PokitDok Platform,” filled with hard-to-reach pricing data. Third-party developers, health systems, insurers and employers will track in real time the life of a claim to see how efficient, or inefficient, a given doctor’s office or outpatient center may be.

At its core, the platform is aimed at other healthcare businesses to develop their own systems using the PokitDok API to accommodate their specific needs, such as HMOs looking at what sort of procedures consumers search for the most or a physician hoping to glean insights on utilization costs.  “It’s information you would expect to see before any major purchasing decision, it just hasn’t happened in healthcare yet,” said Lisa Maki, PokitDok’s co-founder and CEO.  “Treatment doesn’t have to be this costly for consumers and providers who deserve to be swiftly compensated for care. This is a data arbitrage problem the PokitDok Platform solves today,” she said.

The platform could be particularly attractive for insurance carriers looking to offer a better consumer experience for scores of newly insured patients. It could help medical practices that have in the past had to contend with a slow and costly reimbursement system that provides little to no information on healthcare pricing, Maki said....