MDsave, a Tendo Marketplace: Making healthcare shoppable for patients.

For many patients, the most confusing part of getting care isn’t finding a provider or scheduling an appointment—it’s not knowing what any of it will cost until a bill arrives weeks later. MDsave was built to solve that problem directly.

What is MDsave?

MDsave.com is the consumer-facing marketplace within Tendo Marketplace—a nationwide platform connecting patients, providers, employers, and care navigators around shoppable bundled care.

On MDsave, patients can search for the procedure they need, compare options from participating providers near them, and purchase care online at a single, all-inclusive upfront price. The price they see is the price they pay. Facility fees, physician services, and ancillary providers are all included.

This is the experience the federal No Surprises Act has pointed toward: patients knowing their costs before care is delivered, with no unexpected charges. MDsave doesn’t just meet that standard—it was built around it from the start.

How it Works

The process is simple:

• Search. Patients search for their procedure on MDsave.com and browse participating providers by location.
• Compare. Side-by-side offers make it easy to evaluate options and choose the provider that works best.
• Purchase. Patients pay online in minutes or at the point of scheduling at a participating facility. Facility, physician, and ancillary providers are bundled into one upfront payment.
• Patients receive care. After purchasing, patients contact the provider to schedule and bring their voucher to the appointment as proof of payment.

That’s it. No claims process. No waiting on insurance. No administrative back-and-forth.

MDsave is also available at the point of sale, directly at participating facilities. Health system staff can send a shared cart to a patient at the time of scheduling, making it easy to collect upfront payment without friction on either side.

For health systems, this eliminates the administrative burden of collections and the financial exposure of uncompensated care, while giving cost-sensitive patients a clear path to moving forward.

Who MDsave is For

It’s tempting to think of MDsave as primarily a tool for uninsured patients. The actual picture is broader—and more strategically relevant for health systems evaluating the opportunity.

Across Tendo Marketplace purchases, 60% come from insured or employer-sponsored patients. That’s a significant shift in how insured patients are approaching care decisions. According to KFF’s national survey, four in ten insured adults delayed or skipped care in the past year because of cost. High deductibles, narrow networks, and prior authorization friction are pushing insured patients to seek out alternatives.

These are additive patients; people who want to get care and are actively searching for a provider that offers transparent, upfront pricing. Without an MDsave option, they might have delayed care entirely, gone to a competitor, or simply not shown up.

Patients who benefit from MDsave include:

• Self-pay patients utilizing lower-cost options
• Patients whose procedures are not covered or denied by insurance
• Employer or direct-contract members
• Health savings account spending for common procedures
• High-deductible health plan members seeking transparency

These aren’t patients who would have chosen a specific health system through traditional channels. They’re patients that would otherwise not be captured at all.

Why Upfront Bundled Pricing Matters for Patients and Providers Alike

The fragmented billing model that defines most healthcare encounters—where patients receive separate invoices from each participant in care—creates real financial uncertainty for patients across coverage levels.

According to the Commonwealth Fund’s 2024 Biennial Health Insurance Survey, nearly a quarter of insured working-age adults are underinsured—enrolled in plans with out-of-pocket costs high enough to make care genuinely difficult to afford. When patients can’t predict what care will cost, many simply don’t get it.

Under the No Surprises Act, uninsured and self-pay patients now have the right to receive a good-faith estimate of their expected costs upfront. MDsave goes a step further: rather than an estimate, patients receive a guaranteed, all-inclusive price before care is delivered.

For health systems, this isn’t just a patient experience improvement—it’s a revenue model shift.

When patients purchase care upfront, providers receive guaranteed payment distributed automatically across all bundle participants. No claims. No denials. No collections process.

Tendo has processed more than 1 million voucher purchases through MDsave, demonstrating the scale of consumer demand for this kind of clarity.

The Hospital Price Transparency Rule and related federal mandates have made clear that healthcare pricing must become more accessible to patients. MDsave operationalizes that requirement in a way that works for health systems by turning a compliance mandate into a patient acquisition channel.

Part of a Larger Ecosystem

MDsave is one channel within Tendo Marketplace, the broader platform that also powers Care Connect, Tendo’s employer and navigator marketplace for self-funded employer plans. Together, these channels give health systems four distinct ways to capture patient volume through transparent, bundled pricing.

Under MDsave:

• Consumer Marketplace: Uninsured, cash-pay, denied-coverage, and HDHP, or any self-pay patient can shop and compare bundled, upfront pricing on MDsave.com.
• Facility Cash Register: Facility staff can send MDsave shared carts directly to patients, collecting payment before care is delivered—simplifying upfront collections at the point of scheduling.

Through Care Connect:

• Private Employer Marketplace: Health systems can capture navigator-directed volume from employers with established lives in surrounding markets, delivered through a private e-commerce site.
• Local Private Direct-to-Employer: Health systems can scale their existing direct employer agreements through a centralized platform that simplifies contracting and ongoing administration.

For health system leaders interested in how bundled shoppable care fits into a broader direct-to-employer strategy or how price transparency compliance connects to patient acquisition, the underlying model is the same: one upfront price, guaranteed payment, and a patient experience built around clarity from the start.

The Quality Question

A natural concern for any patient considering a shoppable care model is whether a lower, upfront price signals a trade-off in care quality. It doesn’t.

Patients get a better price because their care is bundled and paid for in advance—reducing administrative costs without changing the doctors, facilities, or quality of care they receive.

But quality transparency goes further than that on Tendo Marketplace. On Care Connect, Tendo embeds objective, data-driven quality ratings directly into the marketplace—giving employers, navigators, and patients visibility into provider performance alongside cost.

Unlike pay-to-play rating systems, Tendo’s quality ratings aren’t influenced by providers. They’re built on clinical algorithms, volume-based insights, and normalization for patient complexity; a built-in value-add for every Care Connect transaction.

The result is a platform where cost and quality aren’t in tension. They’re presented together, so every care decision can be an informed one.

Quality care. One platform. Two channels.

Whether you’re a patient looking for a procedure or a health system leader evaluating new revenue channels, the starting point is the same: transparent pricing, upfront payment, and quality you can see before you decide.

• For patients: Find procedures near you and see what you can save at MDsave.com.
• For health system leaders: Learn how Tendo Marketplace helps providers capture self-pay volume with guaranteed upfront payment. Contact our team.