About Us

OutofPocket was created to educate consumers about true health care prices. Our website allows consumers to search for prices for health care services, and invites consumers to use OutofPocket.com to post prices they paid for health care services.

Health care costs are soaring. More and more out-of-pocket costs are being passed along to the consumer in the form of deductibles, co-pays, co-insurance and premiums. Consumers, including the uninsured and insured, can make their health care dollars go a lot further by shopping around for the best value. In order to do this, consumers need access to meaningful transparency tools. When consumers take the time to research price and quality information, and understand fair prices for services, they make informed choices. Outofpocket.com benefits uninsured consumers that pay cash for services, insured consumers with high-deductible health plans, and insured consumers looking for services out of network. In addition, self-insured employers and their employees can use Outofpocket.com to look-up prices for routine services and find the best value in their area – before visiting a provider.

Most health insurance plans and TPAs do not provide members with appropriate tools to look-up true out-of-pocket prices. Providers often cannot tell patients the true price of their service. This creates a real challenge for cost-conscious consumers trying to make the most out of their health care dollars when they don't know in advance the true price of the specific procedure or service they will be purchasing.

The prices in the Outofpocket.com directory are collected from multiple sources including consumers posting prices they paid for medical services, provider price lists, Government CMS Medicare payment data for common procedures, and public websites that publish health care prices. The more prices we collect in the directory - the more meaningful the directory will become. In fact, if enough consumers collaborate and post prices to the directory, consumers collectively will have created a very powerful and meaningful directory of true health care prices. Everyone benefits from this collaborative effort.

In today's health care system, a provider will have many different prices (sometimes up to 100) for the exact same service. The different prices are a result of the different contracted rates each insurance plan negotiated with the provider. The specific insurance plan you have determines the price you pay -- what we refer to as the true price. How do you know if you are overpaying for a service if you don't know in advance what you will be charged? What is the average price for this type of service? How much did other consumers pay for the exact same service? If you are uninsured, what discount can you expect to receive from this provider? Where can you find the best value in your area? The answers to all these questions can be found in OutofPocket.com.

OutofPocket.com is a service of Flying Aces Technology, Inc., a well-regarded Chicago-area software engineering and consulting firm. Founded in 1995, Flying Aces has delivered award-winning products and services to clients ranging from Internet startups to Fortune 50 corporations. Notable clients include Abbott Molecular, Advocate Health Partners, Allscripts, McDonalds, Medicity, Noteworthy Medical Systems, Park City Solutions and United Airlines. Flying Aces has broad expertise working with hospitals, labs, physicians, and software vendors. For more information, visit Flying Aces Technology

Leadership Team

Mona Lori, Principal

Mona Lori is founder of OutofPocket.com, a health care price transparency portal, and Principal at Flying Aces Technology, Inc., a consulting company that specializes in developing custom software solutions. Mona is an entrepreneur and an accomplished triathlete who is passionate about promoting wellness and consumer driven health care initiatives. She has received recognition for her dedication, innovation and research promoting price transparency initiatives for our health care system. Mona is passionate about making a difference in helping to reform our nation’s health care system.

An experienced marketing professional with a solid background in information technology, Mona has a track record for delivering successful business solutions to meet market needs. She is a leader who combines entrepreneurial skills with her technical expertise to initiate and develop projects for established and start-up organizations. Mona holds a great understanding of what it takes to launch new products from concept through commercialization. She is characterized as an enthusiastic, highly motivated, results-driven leader with a commitment to exceeding expectations.

Patrick Frisbie, Principal

Patrick Frisbie is a successful entrepreneur who has extensive technical and management expertise in information systems spanning work-group computing, enterprise systems, and Internet technology. His many years of experience include big four consulting, start-ups, commercial software development, and freelance software engineering. Patrick has been involved in a number of start-up businesses in Health Care, eCommerce, Security/Auditing and Internet Promotions, including the founding of Flying Aces Technology. He has received numerous professional awards and is a published author. Patrick has a reputation for excellence and is well known for his ability to solve any technical problem in the world. His business experience and technical expertise keep him in constant demand.

Advisory Board

Grace-Marie Turner

Grace-Marie Turner is the Founder and President of the Galen Institute, a non-profit research organization dedicated to free-market ideas for health reform. She has been instrumental in developing and promoting ideas for reform that transfer power over health care decisions to doctors and patients. She speaks and writes extensively about incentives to promote a more competitive, consumer-driven marketplace in the health sector. Grace-Marie speaks extensively in the U.S. and abroad, including at the London School of Economics, Oxford University, and the Gregorian University at the Vatican in Rome. She testifies regularly before Congress and advises the White House, other senior administration officials, governors, and state legislators on health policy. Grace-Marie is founder and facilitator of the Health Policy Consensus Group which serves as a forum for analysts from market-oriented think tanks around the country to analyze and develop policy recommendations. She is the editor of Empowering Health Care Consumers through Tax Reform and produces a widely-read weekly electronic newsletter, Health Policy Matters. She has been published in major newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, she has appeared on ABC’s 20/20 and on hundreds of radio and television programs in the U.S. She also received the 2007 Outstanding Achievement Award for Promotion of Consumer Driven Health Care from Consumer Health World.

Roy Ramthun

Roy Ramthun is President of HSA Consulting Services, a health care consulting practice specializing in Health Savings Accounts and consumer-driven health care issues. Prior to forming his consulting practice, Mr. Ramthun was the Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy at the White House. As a member of the National Economic Council staff, Mr. Ramthun was the senior health policy advisor to President George W. Bush regarding health care issues involving the Internal Revenue Code (primarily Health Savings Accounts), Medicare, Medicaid, and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. Before joining the President's staff, Mr. Ramthun was the Senior Advisor to the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury for health initiatives. In this role, he led Treasury's implementation of Health Savings Accounts after they were enacted into law in December, 2003. Prior to joining the Treasury Department, Mr. Ramthun held a variety of positions during his eight-year tenure at Humana Inc., one of the nation's largest health insurance companies, headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky.