Inspiration
Health insurance is a hot topic today. However, whether we like it or not, health insurance in the US is currently a private industry with many large companies in the space. In fact, the US health insurance industry was valued at 1.4 trillion USD in 2018, spread over 900 different companies (according to Global Market Insights and the Insurance Information Institute).
With all of these different health insurance companies and plans, it is incredibly difficult to keep track of which company might have the best coverage in your area, and which plan would be the most beneficial. To help make this process easier, we wanted to create an easy visual that shows exactly what your (and other) health insurance provider and plan covers.
What it does
The user selects their health insurance provider, plan, and what type of institution they would like to visit. After inputting their information and pressing the "View!" button, the user is shown a map that shows which locations are supported by their health insurance provider. For example, a user looking for a rehab center with the Aetna Open Choice plan would input their information and be provided with a map of rehab centers in their area that are covered under their specific plan.
How we built it
MedView was implemented with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Jinja for the front end as well as Flask and PostgreSQL for the backend.
Challenges we ran into
Most of our team had little to no front end experience so MedView was our first exposure to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Jinja. However, with the help of online resources such as W3School in addition to the coding god that is Zachary Siegel, we were able to pick up on the basics of the language quickly.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
- Figuring out front end development mostly on the fly
- Participating in our first hackathon!
What we learned
- The basics of front end development
- HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Jinja
- Web app development
- Flask, new Python libraries, PostgreSQL, and GitHub collaboration
- How to cram even more effectively!
What's next for MedView
Due to time constraints, we were not able to fully realize our goal. The most important step for MedView would be the development and implementation of a web crawler. This web crawler would be able to search through and find information on what institutions are covered under each plan/provider, allowing us to gather the enormous amount of data that we need much more efficiently. In addition, some other key features that MedView could see in its future development include:
- A user login feature
- Option to save/favorite searches and locations
- Add compare feature
- Overlay multiple maps with different plans/providers to see differences
- Overview of benefits, pricing, etc.
- Information on business hours
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.