A transparent marketplace for pet owners to compare veterinary costs, track medical history, and coordinate prescription fulfillment through trusted partners.

Data Use Agreement

1. Purpose

This Data Use Agreement (“DUA”) describes how pricing data, reviews, and other contributions are collected, verified, displayed, and shared on VetCostIQ. By contributing data or using the Platform, you agree to these terms.

2. Data Sources

VetCostIQ pricing data comes from the following sources:

User-submitted invoices: Real receipts uploaded by pet parents, processed via OCR to extract line items and prices.
Hospital-published prices: Prices published on hospital websites or price transparency pages, extracted and verified by our team.
State and regional benchmarks: Aggregated medians and percentiles derived from verified price records, displayed as reference ranges.
Licensed datasets: Third-party veterinary pricing datasets, if integrated in the future, will be clearly labeled.

3. Confidence Tiers

Every price record is assigned a confidence tier to indicate its source and reliability:

Tier 1 — Hospital Published: Prices directly from a hospital’s published price list. Highest confidence.
Tier 2 — User Invoice (Hospital-specific): Prices extracted from a real invoice tied to a specific hospital.
Tier 3 — Regional: Prices aggregated from multiple sources within a state or metro area.
Tier 4 — National: Prices aggregated at the national level for general reference.

4. Verification Process

All automatically extracted pricing data goes through a human verification queue before publication. Admin reviewers check for accuracy, correct procedure mapping, and reasonable pricing.

User-submitted invoices are processed via OCR but are not individually verified by our team. They are displayed with the appropriate confidence tier so users understand the source.

Prices that cannot be confidently mapped to a standard procedure code are held in an Unmatched Service queue until reviewed.

5. Your Contributions

When you upload an invoice or contribute pricing data, you grant VetCostIQ a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use, display, aggregate, and derive insights from that data on the Platform.

You control the visibility of your uploaded invoices. Even when shared, personally identifying information is redacted unless you explicitly choose to include it.

You confirm that you have the right to share any invoice or receipt you upload and that the data is accurate to the best of your knowledge.

6. Data Display and Use

Pricing data is used to:

Display hospital-specific prices on hospital profile pages.
Calculate and display state-level benchmark medians and ranges.
Power price comparison tools and cost transparency features.
Generate AI summaries that describe a hospital’s pricing relative to local benchmarks.

7. Data Accuracy and Limitations

While we strive for accuracy, pricing data may be outdated, incomplete, or affected by factors such as pet size, condition severity, and regional cost variations.

Prices displayed are historical observations, not quotes. Always confirm current pricing directly with the provider.

VetCostIQ is not liable for decisions made based on displayed pricing data.

8. Partner Data Access

Claimed hospitals and pharmacies can view their own profile data, reviews, and engagement metrics. They cannot access individual user data or invoices beyond what users have directly shared with them through messaging.

9. Data Removal

You may request removal of your contributed pricing data or invoices at any time. Anonymized, aggregated data that has been incorporated into benchmarks may be retained to maintain dataset integrity.

10. Changes to This Agreement

We may update this DUA as our data practices evolve. Material changes will be communicated through the Platform.