TransparentCare

A mobile app that helps you scan medical receipts and dispute unfair charges.

Inspiration

Medical bills can often be confusing, stressful, and unexpectedly high. We’ve personally seen family and friends struggle to understand why they were charged so much after healthcare procedures, leaving them feeling overwhelmed and helpless. This inspired us to create TransparentCare, a straightforward app designed to give users clarity and control over their healthcare expenses.

What It Does

TransparentCare allows users to take a quick picture of a medical receipt using their phone. The app immediately provides clear, easy-to-understand explanations of each charge listed on the receipt.

If the app identifies costs that appear unfair or unreasonable, it guides users through simple steps to dispute these charges, empowering patients to advocate for themselves effectively.

How We Built It

We developed TransparentCare using:

Frontend: React Native for a cross-platform mobile app
Backend: Node.js and Express for secure and efficient image processing
AI: GPT-4 Vision API from OpenAI to accurately read and interpret receipts, and generate text
Dev Tools: Visual Studio Code, GitHub for collaboration

We originally tested Tesseract and Google Cloud Vision API, but due to the complexity of medical billing language, we pivoted to GPT-4 Vision, which dramatically improved accuracy.

Challenges We Ran Into

Text Extraction Accuracy: Tesseract and Google Cloud Vision struggled with medical jargon, and poor lighting.
Backend Integration: Switching to GPT-4 Vision required rapid backend refactoring.
Image Handling: Transferring images via base64 helped us improve speed and reliability.
Time Constraints: We had to prioritize essential features and iterate quickly under pressure.
Data set size: The datasets we used were quite large, which made it challenging to browse through them and extract the specific information we needed.

Accomplishments We're Proud Of

Successfully integrating GPT-4 Vision in under 36 hours
Building a fully functional prototype with seamless front-to-backend communication
Creating an app that tackles a real-world problem many people face

What We Learned

Fast integration of powerful AI APIs into real-world mobile apps
Efficient cross-platform development using React Native
Managing base64 image data transfer between frontend and backend
Strengthened our team collaboration and agile problem-solving under time pressure