MedBillManager Has A New UI, A Wiki, And Is Now In Public Alpha

By Amit Chowdhry ● Dec 23, 2006

On October 5, I had reviewed MedBillManager for the first time and recently I have had the opportunity to check out a public alpha version of the company. MedBillManager allows you to stay organized by acting as an online medical bill file manager. You can easily add records, compare bills (with other users that input insurance cost information), and also reminds you of upcoming bills that are owed to you or that you owe.

MedBillManager’s free services of medical cost comparisons are capturing so much attention that Intuit Inc. has been visiting MedBillManager quite a bit and are “validating our approach by their intense scrutiny of how we are helping people deal with medical expenses via a free” according to the MedBillManager blog.

Currently, Intuit offers Medical Expense Manager software for $49 and SimoHealth for $39. Intuit is also known for some of their Quicken software and TurboTax.

When users log in to MedBillManager, a Dashboard reminds the user what bills they owe and the bills that are owed to them and also allows the user to view previous transactions by the 5’s, 10’s, 15’s, or 20’s. Also on the Dashboard homepage, there is a balance sheet displayed of transactions inputted into the website so that you know who you paid or who has paid you.

There is also a ‘My Bills’ section that allows you to look at your current/past medical bills. You can view competitive providers through this feature as well.

In the ‘Compare Bills’ section, users can browse through other bills anonymously which can even be filtered by each state in the U.S., insurance grouping, and actual health issue.

The million dollar question is ‘how will MedBillManager make money?’ The first two family members would be free to monitor on MedBillManager, 3-5 members after that would cost $2 per month (flat $24 annual fee), and 6-10 family members would cost $3 per month (flat $36 annual fee). Looking at the cost of the site, it appears that you really get a bang for your buck considering the fact that MedBillManager stays up-to-date as the user-base grows and you do not have to wait a year for newly updated information like other software.

One of the newest features of MedBillManager is a community-driven wiki. The community wiki describes in detail how to use each feature.

MedBillManager was created for the simple purpose of ensuring that you are not ripped off by medical insurance providers. I have chatted regularly with one of the founders of MedBillManager, Christopher Parks, and he is known for valuing any feedback that is given.

I’d highly suggest tracking some of the changes that are made with MedBillManager and to try it out and also suggesting any improvements that you feel may be added in the MedBillManager blog posts.