Resources for journalists

Erik Saltsgaver, Founder
[email protected]
Replies within one business hour during U.S. CT business hours.

For B2B partnership inquiries (employers, brokers, TPAs, health shares), use /partners instead.

• Founded: 2024 (public launch in 2026).
• What it is:a free consumer search tool that lets a patient enter a procedure (e.g. "MRI") and a ZIP code and see real cash prices and negotiated rates across nearby hospitals.
• Data source: the machine-readable files (MRFs) every U.S. hospital must publish under the CMS Hospital Price Transparency Rule (45 CFR 180), including the v3.0 schema effective January 1, 2026 (active enforcement began April 1, 2026).
• Coverage: ingestion in progress across 5,900+ U.S. hospitals; metro-level coverage details available on request.
• Privacy: no personal health information is stored. Only de-identified pricing data and public hospital metadata.
• Business model: free consumer search, optional paid features (saved alerts, full reports), and B2B subscriptions for employers, brokers, TPAs, and health share organizations.

• v3.0 enforcement scorecard: per-metro and per-hospital compliance with the new CEO attestation, mandatory NPI, and percentile allowed amounts requirements that became enforceable April 1, 2026.
• Same-procedure price spread: the highest-to-lowest cash price for a single procedure within a single metro (commonly 5x–10x).
• Cash vs. negotiated paradox: hospitals where the published cash price is lower than the negotiated rate for major insurers.
• Bill-of-the-month leads:patients with documented over-billing relative to the hospital's own published file.
• Largest non-compliant facility by metro: ranked by bed count and Medicare patient volume.

Email [email protected] with the metro or hospital name and we will send a custom dataset and methodology note within one business day.

Erik Saltsgaver is the founder of MyCareCost. He built the platform after seeing firsthand how unusable the federally required machine-readable price files are for the patients they were meant to serve. Erik can speak to the technical realities of ingesting the v3.0 schema, the gaps between what hospitals publish and what patients can actually use, and the consumer-side opportunity created by CMS enforcement of the new rule.

For interviews, contact [email protected]. Headshot and 50/100/200-word bios available on request.

We download every published MRF on a rolling schedule, parse the CMS v3.0 schema fields (CPT/HCPCS/DRG, gross charges, discounted cash prices, payer-specific negotiated charges, and the new median, P10, and P90 allowed amounts), and surface them in a per-procedure, per-ZIP search.

Read the full methodology at /methodology.

Logo files (SVG and PNG), product screenshots, and short-form demo video are available on request. Email [email protected] and we will send a Drive link.