Natural language search for medical procedure prices.
Understands free-text queries like:
- "MRI brain near San Jose with Blue Cross PPO"
- "How much does a colonoscopy cost in Palo Alto?"
- "knee replacement, no insurance, Mountain View"
Extracts procedure, location, and insurance from the query, resolves
CPT/DRG codes (using static synonyms + LLM), geocodes the city,
and searches with optional geo-filtering and payer matching.
You can provide structured fields (lat/lng, payer, setting) to override
or supplement what the NLP extraction detects from the query text.
NOTE: Results are from US HOSPITALS only — not non-US providers, independent
imaging centers, ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs), or other freestanding facilities.
For outpatient procedures (MRIs, CTs, minor surgeries), independent
facilities may offer lower prices than hospitals.
Args:
query: Natural language query describing what you're looking for.
radius_miles: Search radius from the detected city (default 25 miles).
code_type: Filter by code type: "CPT", "HCPCS", "MS-DRG".
setting: Filter by clinical setting: "inpatient" or "outpatient".
lat: Override latitude (e.g. from browser geolocation). Skips geocoding.
lng: Override longitude (e.g. from browser geolocation). Skips geocoding.
zip_code: 5-digit ZIP to search near — alternative to lat/lng.
payer: Insurance payer name (e.g. "Blue Cross"). Overrides NLP extraction.
plan_type: Plan type (e.g. "PPO", "HMO"). Overrides NLP extraction.
limit: Max results (default 25).
Returns:
JSON with extracted entities (procedure, city, insurance), resolved codes,
and matching charge items with prices and hospital info.
Only high-confidence results (with at least one usable price) are included.
Each result includes last_updated (ISO date of the per-hospital MRF ingest)
and mrf_date (ISO date the hospital self-reported in the MRF file).
When all results are filtered out, filtered_low_confidence=true is set.