Real prices, plainly sourced
We gather free public price data, check its license, and show it with its source and date.
Drugs: what pharmacies pay
CMS surveys retail pharmacy invoices every week and publishes the National Average Drug Acquisition Cost (NADAC). We show the median per unit for each product. A fair cash price is this cost plus a dispensing fee.
Generic swaps
For brand drugs, NADAC also lists the cost of the corresponding generic. The FDA Orange Book tells us which generics are rated therapeutically equivalent. Only your prescriber or pharmacist can say whether a switch is right for you.
Hospital cash prices
Federal rules (45 CFR 180) require hospitals to post machine-readable price files. We read each hospital's official index (cms-hpt.txt), download the file, and keep outpatient self-pay prices for common codes.
The Medicare benchmark
Medicare pays set rates that vary by area. We compute your local rate from the CMS Physician Fee Schedule (relative value units times your area's cost index times the conversion factor, $33.4009) and use the national Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule for labs.
Pharmacies near you
We look up licensed pharmacies in your ZIP code in the federal NPI Registry, live, at the moment you ask. We do not keep the ZIP.
Weekly refresh
Data refreshes weekly. If a new file looks wrong (fewer items, older dates, missing hospitals), the update stops and the last good version stays live.