Mark GalvinFounder, President and CEO, TALON · President and CEO, TALON

We created TALON to put Healthcare Independence back into your hands. It’s time to take flight.

21 May 2021 · 3 min

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2:49

In this video, the founder recounts a personal medical visit that revealed the lack of price transparency in healthcare. While seeing his family doctor for a birthday check‑up, he was recommended a nuclear stress test and a colonoscopy. When he asked about the cost, the doctor admitted he didn’t know but offered the CPT procedure codes so the patient could shop around. The founder’s subsequent attempts to find transparent pricing through existing services failed, as those platforms had limited data and control. This experience, combined with his prior knowledge of health‑savings accounts (HSAs) and high‑deductible health plans (HDHPs) as employer‑benefit tools, convinced him that a consumer‑focused solution was needed. He and his team founded Talon, positioning it as a laser‑focused company that puts employees, employers, and patients—the ultimate payers—first by providing clear, actionable cost information for medical procedures.

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So, one experience I had personally that helped us, you know, think about forming this company was my family doctor who I went to see, who, by the way, was the one who taught me about health savings accounts and high deductible health plans as a potential strategy for employers to really provide a great health benefit to employees as opposed to a Not so great one, was that I went in for, I think it was my 53rd birthday roughly. I hadn't seen him, I'd been bad and hadn't gone to see him for a couple years, and I think he wanted to get even with me, but he hooked me up to the EKG and he said, Mark, you have a right branch bundle block, and, you know, I want to send you for a nuclear stress test. And I said, hey Michael, you know, how much is that going to cost? You know, you taught me about health savings accounts and I'm on a high deductible health plan. So whatever I'm paying for that is going to be coming out of what otherwise I could save for my retirement, triple tax advantaged. And he said, Mark, I have no idea how much that's going to cost, but you're not going to drop dead anytime soon. If you want, I can get you the CPT code, which is the procedure code that, that describes the nuclear stress test, and you can go and shop it to your heart's content, and then let me know where you want me to send you for it. And so on a yellow sticky note, his wife Gina wrote the CPT code for a nuclear stress test. She also put a colonoscopy on there also, cuz I was overdue for my colonoscopy. And, uh, I went on a discovery tour to figure out whether or not there was any transparency in pricing yet. And, uh, sure enough, I discovered as I called around to all the would-be 2007, 2008 vintage dealerships. Transparency companies that I was aware of, none of them could help at all. They didn't control their own data. They were restricted to very few procedures. And so that was, that was enough research for me to realize that, you know, somebody had to fix this problem. Somebody had to do what was right for consumers, ignoring all others. And And shortly thereafter, we ended up starting Talon. And, you know, we've had a laser focus on doing the right things for the consumer. The consumer are those who are responsible ultimately for the cost of paying for all these things. That's employees, that's employers, that's patients. And, and so we've managed to stay focused on that.