September 14, 2007 
Obviously, a big part of true consumerism will be patients sharing information about their healthcare experiences (e.g., this doctor is great, you wait too long here, this drug gave me hives) and their costs (aka transparency). There are several locations moving towards this especially around disease specific discussion groups.
One new site that contacted me is OutOfPocket.com. It is still very early stage, but it has the right concept. You can go online and look up the comparative costs of a treatment or office visit in your area. Below are two examples. I like the second one where the patient cuts to the chase in the comments area. The company also has started a blog recently which I look forward to being cutting edge and aggressively laying out cost data.
Enabling Healthy Decisions 
One of our precepts is we want the true price of services – the actual amount paid to the provider. Many times “true prices” are difficult to obtain. Hospitals publish list prices that are wildly inflated and often are 2 or 3 times higher than what insurance companies actually pay. Doctors and out-patient facilities many times cannot determine the price of a service until the claim has been submitted and processed by the insurance carrier. Lack of price transparency inhibits marketplace efficiencies and prevents price competition.
So with the goal of “true prices” we are consolidating prices from patients’ actual visits (ala user-generated content), government databases (CMS), state hospital associations, and claim data from participating claim administrators.
Armed with the “true price” consumers will be empowered to manage their healthcare spending, negotiate with providers and evaluate insurance plans.