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It would be really interesting to see a crowdsourced index of real cost and insurer-paid cost for procedures across the US. Maybe a service that pays patients some nominal sum to share the data, then aggregates it and presents it to patients, journalists, etc.

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Here is another incentive:

When users share their bills and EOB, provide them with an automated analysis of their bills: what seems weird, which billed items were far above average prices, etc.

This information can be precious when negotiating with the doctor's office, when Yelp/google-maps reviews, or when contacting your politicians about the absurdity of health care costs.

This is an excellent idea. Also, sell aggregated data on cost of care in local areas to doctors and insurance companies, so they can make clear business decision on how to compete against the local market.

Though that creates an incentive for the company to not share its own data.

The author of this article, Sara Kliff basically did a smaller version of that for ER visits when she was a reporter at Vox. The reporting did end up affecting policy.

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