Getting quotes back and the range is honestly all over the place, need a reality check.

One agency quoted us $40k for a patient portal with basic scheduling and messaging. Another quoted almost triple that for what sounds like similar functionality. Trying to understand if custom healthcare app development naturally has this much price variation or if someone's either overcharging or underselling what's actually required.

Compliance requirements alone seem to add a lot of cost that we didn't originally budget for.

Still trying to figure out:

• What specifically drives the price up this much between vendors quoting similar features

• Whether HIPAA compliance work is usually included or something that gets added on separately later

Would love to hear real numbers from anyone who's actually gone through a project like this recently.