Frequently asked questions

Vital Care Finder matches on doctor responsiveness, cost, quality, conditions treated, and procedures. No other consumer find-a-doc service seems to provide that. This data is based on a proprietary data set culled from millions of actual insurance billings and anonymous patient records.

The matching algorithm uses your “health fingerprint” based on age, gender, conditions, medications and more to find the right doctor. We use doctor responsiveness (do they call you back, or confirm the online appointment) as a key criterion no one else does. With each use of Vital Care Finder, doctor responsiveness and who has availability this week get refined.

Nope. Zero. Nada. $0. Finding the right healthcare provider will always be free for people in need of health care.

Vital lists all doctors across the US free of charge. For doctors who want an enhanced profile, booking integration, faxes or direct secure messaging with clinical context on their patients, or support for scheduling across multiple doctors, we offer a paid service with a flat fee per booking.

Finding the “best” doctor is like finding the “best wife/husband”: it depends very much on who you are, not just them. With primary care doctors in particular, we know their patient panel: who they treat, what kinds of conditions they handle above the population average, and whether those patients are healthier or unhealthier than average. This clinical “fingerprint” can be used to find you a doctor who specializes in athletic 40- to 60-year-old men, or children with chronic illness, or older women with kidney issues.

We also have data on the exact procedures each doctor performs, and what they billed insurance. This gives not only relative cost, but more precision on what each doctor does. An orthopedic surgeon who specializes in hands is very different from one who specializes in knees, for example.

Vital Care Finder of course also ranks on insurance, language spoken, and ratings. But those are considered commodity data points, available at half a dozen other sites.

In short, every doctor in the US. The longer answer is that any “care provider” with a current, registered, licensed National Provider Identifier (NPI) should appear in Vital Care Finder. Currently that’s a few million doctors (MD & DO credentials) plus advanced practice providers (nurse practitioners and physician assistants). This is a much wider network than most online find-a-docs, because finding a good doctor with availability can be hard and we wanted to make it easier.

Anyone who’s worked in healthcare knows an accurate directory is hard work! We use public data at the federal and state level, proprietary databases, proof of billing activity, verification of fax and phone numbers, insurance APIs, and more.

Cost and quality are measured on a relative basis. One dollar sign (lower cost) in New York City may have a different absolute dollar amount than in Omaha, Nebraska. In general, both cost and quality are measured in “quintiles” (top 20%, top 40%, etc.) for a particular geographic region.

Ultimately this data comes from insurance billings. Some doctors charge $2,700 for a colonoscopy, and others $700 for the same procedure. Quality looks at rates of hospital and ER admissions, repeat procedures, and other CMS quality measures. This data is licensed.

Vital does have some online booking integrations where you know the exact time, e.g. 2:10 p.m., for your appointment at the time of request. Most listings use a “callback” system. The clinic calls you back to confirm the appointment, validate your insurance, and choose a time slot.

We did this for a few reasons. First, waiting on the phone for half an hour sucks; getting a callback when the clinic scheduler is ready saves you time. Second, the dirty secret with most online booking systems is that clinics have way more availability than is shown. Asking the clinic to call you back unlocks slots that are sooner or more convenient than what’s listed online. It’s a bit like calling a popular restaurant that blocks tables from 6–9 p.m. every Friday and Saturday night because they think they’ll get enough walk-ins. Call and you magically have that perfect time slot.

Vital Care Finder was built from scratch with AI agents in mind. It’s one of the first applications ever to be embedded within popular LLMs.

Simply search for “The best cardiologist in Phoenix who takes Cigna” or “What doctor near me can help with a heart valve” anywhere in the US and Vital Care Finder is often used. To explicitly invoke it in the Claude chat window, click [+] > Connectors > Add Connector > Browse Connectors to add “Vital Care Finder”. In ChatGPT, open the Vital Care Finder listing in the app directory and connect it.

Rendered inside both ChatGPT and Claude, Vital Care Finder is a new type of “embedded app” that shows a map of matching doctors, and a fully expandable view including doctor headshot, ratings, cost, credentials & education, languages, and typical procedures. It is the first consumer-oriented MCP connector of its kind in the healthcare space.

Vital Care Finder was created by Vital Software, founded in 2017 by CEO Aaron Patzer (formerly Founder & CEO of Mint.com, where he saved consumers $9B+ in bank fees and interest, and holds 10 patents in algorithms), and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Justin Schrager, MD, MPH, a practicing emergency physician at IU Health (and formerly Emory University Hospital; Justin has saved many lives both in the hospital and out in the field).

The wider team served key roles at Healthgrades, Vocera/Stryker, and healthcare consulting. Vital Software’s enterprise division, Vital.io (opens in a new tab), today guides 7M patients annually through emergency, urgent care, and inpatient visits across dozens of health systems including 3 of the top 6 largest IDNs. Vital is known for its innovations in safe, patient-facing AI, including the doctor-to-patient translator launched in May 2023, and its status as a founding member of the PatientAI Collaborative™ at aicarestandard.com (opens in a new tab) committed to safe, accurate, and clinically responsible AI-driven patient communication.

Vital is backed by Transformation Capital, Threshold Ventures, First Round Capital, and luminaries in healthcare including the founders of Flatiron Health, PatientPing/Bamboo Health, and more.