How Safeway Slashed Its Healthcare Costs, While Keeping Quality High

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.

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.