5 ms·
The thought is that, especially with expensive chronic illnesses like diabetes or heart disease, getting the patient to stick to their treatment plan has a dram
by exelius 9y ago
The thought is that, especially with expensive chronic illnesses like diabetes or heart disease, getting the patient to stick to their treatment plan has a dramatic effect on costs. Fewer hospital visits means drastically lower costs, and having even a marginal shift in utilization of routine maintenance regimens can move the needle on costs.
That's the theory, anyway. It might work, because the health insurance industry is a mess and is just now finishing migrations to modern IT platforms. A well-funded upstart like Oscar could easily come in with a modern analytics core and undercut on administrative costs.
Many of these companies don't have people who know how to deal with the volume of data in a migration.
- throwaway2048 9y agojust what we need, healthcare spyware.. err sorry "analytics" that "encourages" you.
- Retric 9y agoResearch does not really back that up. You pay less per year on average per person, but now your sick people live longer so you pay for more years. Now, private insurance may get around this assuming the sick person moves on to someone else's balance sheet, but for the health care system there is no real savings.
- exelius 9y agoYeah, I tend to agree with you. But at the same time, none of the existing insurance companies have good enough analytics to handle this well. The thought is that "maybe Oscar can find a better way? Or at the very least build a software platform we can license to other insurance companies..." My thought is that Oscar is ultimately a platform play; not an insurance company.
- aaronbrethorst 9y agoHuh, that sounds like a great reason to move to single payer.
- wbl 9y agoYour per annum costs determine premiums, plus the person can work longer.
- koolba 9y agoOn the whole, not the individual as there's no discrimination on the health of the customer. It's entirely possible for an insurer to end up with a bad pool through attrition of healthy people.
- MisterBastahrd 9y agoThe problem with treatment plans is that most of the ill have jobs, families, and most of the obligations those entail on top of that. The US in particular tends to promote the ideal of putting yourself at risk so your family can have a better life. My sister became diabetic after having her second child. Her kids are VERY active, her husband is often away for work, and she's a nurse. The biggest positive impact on her health? Getting a pump to regulate insulin dosage so that she didn't have to think about it anymore. This is a positive thing. Meanwhile, my workplace has instituted one of those pedometers that tracks your activity and reduces your healthcare costs. People are worried not only about what it tracks, but what business it is of their employer to know how active they are outside of the office to begin with.
- pjc50 9y ago> my workplace has instituted one of those pedometers that tracks your activity Hang on - tracks your activity out of work? Are you paid for the full 24 hours? No. So you're performing unpaid labour (walking) for them? Might want to consider a union there.
- aninhumer 9y agoI'd imagine the pedometer is a condition of the health insurance provided by the employer, not a condition of employment itself. So they could choose not to wear it, but then they wouldn't be insured. It sucks and should be challenged, but it's not "unpaid labour".