Waypoint Ledger

Years to a diagnosis

What did your diagnostic search actually cost?

Type it the way you remember it. Every figure comes from a published federal file.

Not your numbers yet — an example, priced from the table as this page loads

  • my regular doctor, six timesCMSDoctor's office visit, established patient, moderate complexity$814
  • a cardiologistCMSFirst visit with a new specialist$177
  • the ER, twiceCMSEmergency room visit, moderate complexity — the whole encounter$1,089

These three published figures $2,080

Free · no account · every figure cited to the published file it came from

The part no dataset sees

The costs no dataset counted

Every federal cost file records care that was delivered and billed. A visit you could not get, a test you were denied, months lost waiting: none of it leaves a row. Waypoint Ledger counts it, and asks the people who carried it which cost hurt most.

Care you needed and did not get leaves no row in any federal cost file. Not $0 — no row at all. National surveys count that it happened to a share of the population; none of them attaches a dollar to it, and none of them is yours.

How it works

Every figure opens

1

Describe it

One sentence in your own words. No codes, no bills, no dates.

2

See what it cost

Each step is priced at one published federal figure, with its year and basis beside it.

3

Act on it

Print the appointment sheet. Flag a figure that is not you.

Every figure published byCenters for Medicare & Medicaid Services257 rowsAHRQ · Medical Expenditure Panel Survey10 rowsPeer-reviewed analysis of MEPS2 rowsAHRQ · Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project2 rowsBureau of Labor Statistics2 rowsGeneral Services Administration1 row

Of the 274 rows this tool prices, 257 were published by CMS, 12 come from AHRQ's MEPS survey, 2 from AHRQ's HCUP, 2 from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and 1 from the General Services Administration. Two of the MEPS rows are a peer-reviewed analysis of that survey rather than an AHRQ publication, and every screen that prints them says so.

Questions people ask
Is this what I will be billed?

No. Most figures are Medicare allowed amounts: the price the federal program pays plus the patient share. For a working-age adult on private coverage they are usually a floor. An uninsured person may be billed the charge, which is higher. The ledger says which basis each line uses.

Where do the numbers come from?

The 2026 Medicare physician and hospital fee schedules, the Clinical Laboratory Fee Schedule, the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, HCUP, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the GSA mileage rate, and — for the year-ahead figure only — a peer-reviewed analysis of MEPS, labelled as such wherever it appears. Every row links to its file, and How it is made shows the arithmetic.

Does an AI price anything?

No. A deterministic matcher maps your words to a unit of care. A published table prices the unit. No model, average or estimate produces a dollar figure anywhere in this tool.

What happens to what I type?

Your ledger stays in your browser. The sentence you type is sent to our reader so it can name the units of care — never a price, in or out — and it is deleted after a day. If you flag a figure, we record only which figure, your verdict, and optionally what you paid. See Privacy.

What the three steps do, in full

Describe it. “Saw my regular doctor three times, then a cardiologist, an echo and a Holter, then the ER.” One sentence is enough. We split it into steps.

See what it cost. Each step maps to a standard unit of care and is priced at one published federal figure, with its year, basis and population beside it. Anything with no figure stays blank and named.

Act on it. Print the appointment sheet for your next visit. Flag a figure that is not you, and it goes back to the agency that published it.

Cited on every line

A figure without a source is a rumor. Each line shows who the number describes, and who it does not, and links to the file it came from — and where a figure is somebody’s analysis of a federal survey rather than a federal publication, it says so on its face.

Your correction counts

Mark a figure wrong and say what you paid. Corrections are bound to the exact published row, so an agency can see where its data misses.

Built for the next appointment

One printed page with every step, every cost and three questions worth asking. A clinician who sees the whole search orders differently.

Your ledger never leaves your device

No account needed. The ledger is built and priced in this browser. The one thing that leaves is the sentence you type, read once by our reader and deleted after a day; nothing you type is stored here unless you press Save and share — and that save hands you a code that deletes it. A share link carries units and counts, never names. Install it to your home screen and the whole price table comes with it, so a waiting room with no bars still works.

Start with one sentence.

It takes about two minutes to see what your search has cost.

Price my journey