CareCompass: Demystifying Health Insurance for Those Who Need It Most

CareCompass turns confusing health insurance into clear forecasts for chronic illness and low income—modeling real care against deductibles so vulnerable patients avoid surprise debt.

The Problem: The "Cheap Premium, High Deductible" Trap

Every open enrollment period, millions of Americans face a confusing and stressful choice on the health insurance marketplace. For a low-income family or anyone living paycheck to paycheck, the default instinct is simple: choose the plan with the lowest monthly premium.

For a healthy individual, that choice might work out. But for anyone managing a chronic condition—such as asthma, Type 2 diabetes, or clinical depression—that decision can quickly lead to financial distress. A plan that saves \$80 a month in premiums can quietly bury an \$8,500 deductible where specialist visits, routine lab monitoring, and brand-name medications are completely uncovered until thousands of dollars are paid out of pocket.

Patients are left trying to answer questions they don't have the tools to solve:

"How much will I actually spend this year managing my condition?"
"Will this cheap plan leave me stranded if I break an arm or need an ER visit?"
"Is paying a higher monthly premium actually cheaper for me in the long run?"

Healthcare decisions shouldn't feel like an expensive gamble.

The idea came when we were exploring health insurance plans on our own. Two of our group members are entering the workforce and the third faced the same problem when coming to the US under his exchange program. We realized how confusing insurance is even with AI assistance and existing solutions. Information is rarely in one place and depending on a few variables, thousands of wildly different prices can appear.

What CareCompass Does

CareCompass is an intelligent healthcare cost navigation platform designed to help everyday people—especially those with complex health circumstances such as low-income individuals and those with ongoing medical needs—find, compare, and stress-test health insurance coverage with total clarity.

Instead of presenting users with static PDFs or confusing jargon like "coinsurance after deductible," CareCompass bridges the gap between human health and insurance math:

1. Plain-Language Guidance

Users skip the 40-question actuarial forms. Through a conversational, accessible interface, individuals simply describe their situation in their own words: their household, chronic conditions, current prescriptions, and preferred doctors. The LLM normalizes user input, following up prompting when information is incomplete,

2. Chronic Care & Routine Use Forecasting

Most people know their diagnoses, but not how many specialist visits, lab panels, or prescription fills standard care requires. CareCompass automatically maps reported conditions into a realistic annual care profile based on established clinical guidelines, turning abstract medical needs into an anticipated schedule of care. We used data analytics to compile real data from past years to simulate what a realistic cost with regular use looks like instead of the often very misleading sticker premiums.

3. Total Cost Transparency

CareCompass evaluates eligible ACA marketplace plans and projects the true annual financial picture: fixed premiums, expected out-of-pocket costs for regular treatments, and remaining deductibles. Every recommendation comes with an itemized, human-readable breakdown showing exactly where every dollar goes and what the insurer covers.

4. Interactive "What-If" Stress Testing

Life doesn't always go according to plan. CareCompass allows users to simulate unexpected medical events—such as a broken arm, an emergency room visit, or an MRI—and instantly observe how each plan protects them from catastrophic costs based on how close they are to their annual Out-of-Pocket Maximum.

Challenges we Faced

One of the biggest roadblocks we hit was just tracking down the actual plan info. It was scattered all over the place, completely disorganized, and just a mess to sort through. We even built automated web-scraping bots to go hunt it down for us, and honestly, even our bots had a miserable time trying to click through and piece everything together. And that was a huge wake-up call for our team. If a group of tech-savvy developers trying our absolute hardest with automated tools can barely find and make sense of this information, how on earth is an elderly person, someone dealing with a disability, or anyone who isn't great with computers supposed to do it? The headache we went through just collecting the data is the exact reason why regular people give up on finding the coverage they need.

Why It Matters: Accessibility & Equity

Health insurance complexity disproportionately harms low-income households and individuals with complex health needs. When families cannot predict their medical expenses, they delay essential care, skip prescriptions, or end up burdened by unexpected medical debt.

By replacing industry jargon with guided conversations, transparent cost receipts, and real-world stress tests, CareCompass empowers patients to choose coverage with confidence, protect their household budgets, and secure care they can genuinely afford to use.