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Technical and Personal Projects

Clear Copay

ClearCopay is an insurance verification and patient cost estimation micro-SaaS built for independent dental and physical therapy practices. Independent practices currently verify insurance eligibility by phone — a process that takes 15-30 minutes per patient, produces inconsistent data, and still requires manual math to translate raw benefit information into a dollar amount the patient can understand.

ClearCopay automates the full workflow: a real-time eligibility check returns live deductible, coinsurance, and copay data in under 10 seconds, then applies the practice's own fee schedule and procedure codes to calculate the specific patient responsibility before treatment begins. No ranges. No guesswork. A concrete number — logged, timestamped, and ready to hand to the patient.

1,500+ payers supported via standard 270/271 EDI transactions, covering 94%+ of US medical eligibility verifications.

Under 10 seconds to return a verified eligibility result — versus 15-30 minutes on hold with a payer, every single time.

2-7 hours back per week for front-desk staff — time currently lost to hold queues, inconsistent data, and manual cost math.

The Problem

At 10-20 verifications per week, phone-based insurance verification consumes 2-7 hours of front-desk staff time — and the estimates are still often wrong. Surprise bills, claim denials, and payment disputes are the result.

Enterprise RCM platforms like Waystar and Athenahealth solve this at the hospital system level for $500-2,000+/month with multi-month implementation timelines. Direct competitors like Aarogram and InstantVOB provide real-time eligibility checks but stop at raw benefit data — they don't perform procedure-specific cost calculation. For a 1-5 provider independent practice, no purpose-built, affordable solution currently exists.

Reviewing patient estimates at a practice

Core Workflow

Staff enters patient member ID, date of birth, and insurance payer
Real-time eligibility check returns deductible remaining, coinsurance, copay, and out-of-pocket maximum — in under 10 seconds
Staff selects the procedure from the practice's fee schedule
System applies coverage logic, calculates patient responsibility, and flags prior authorization requirements automatically
Staff prints or emails a plain-language patient estimate before treatment begins

All estimates are logged with timestamp and payer response data for dispute resolution. A practice dashboard surfaces pending verifications, expiring estimates, and upcoming prior auth renewals.

Technical Architecture and Decision Making

Built for zero infrastructure overhead and HIPAA compliance from day one. Every layer was chosen to minimize operational burden while meeting healthcare data requirements.

ELIGIBILITY: JSON + EDI 270/271

1,500+ payers · real-time eligibility · AI-driven dental benefit extraction

94%+ of US medical eligibility verifications use standard 270/271 EDI transactions. We extract this in a REST/JSON API and add AI-driven dental specialty benefit extraction — the layer that differentiates D-code dental coverage from general medical benefit data. BAA executed prior to launch. No PHI stored in transit.

DATABASE: SUPABASE (POSTGRESQL)

Row Level Security · multi-tenant isolation · HIPAA-aligned data architecture

Row Level Security enforced at the database layer ensures complete per-practice data isolation in a multi-tenant architecture — no practice can access another's patient data, even through a misconfigured query. Supabase supports growth to 50K MAU before any infrastructure cost is incurred.

HOSTING: VERCEL + SUPABASE

Zero infrastructure management · scales without ops overhead

Vercel Pro handles the frontend with global CDN and automatic deployments. Combined with Supabase's managed Postgres, the entire stack requires no DevOps work during early growth — keeping focus on product and customer acquisition, not server management.

Business Model

Subscription SaaS with no per-transaction fees — a deliberate positioning choice against API-passthrough competitors who charge per verification. Predictable monthly cost makes budgeting straightforward for independent practice owners.

Dental Solo

$249/mo

1-2 provider practice

Dental Group

$399/mo

3-10 providers, multi-location

PT Standard

$199/mo

1-5 provider clinic

PT Multi-Site

$299/mo

6-10 providers

Status & Outcome

Beta recruitment is underway. Independent dental practices in the Portland metro area are being onboarded at clearcopay.com/research. Beta participants receive discounted lifetime pricing in exchange for early feedback and workflow input. Pacific Northwest expansion begins Year 2, with national self-serve rollout in Year 3 supported by EHR integration partnerships.

Photos by DC Studio and Freepik Magnific.com

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