3 ms·

That sounds very familiar. At first I thought it was a mistake. The confusion when you get several bills, one larger than the other. Then the shock, when you ge

That sounds very familiar. At first I thought it was a mistake. The confusion when you get several bills, one larger than the other. Then the shock, when you get the final picture of what you owe. I went back and forth with the hospital and finally got an itemized bill (I didn’t know such a thing existed nor didn’t understand why all bills would be itemized.) A square gauze priced at the cost of an iPad,... And then the upcoding racket. It all leaves you confused. How is this possible? Why isn’t the media all over this or the state attorney? And why in the world is the insurance company part of the game? Then came the Time magazine front cover story (2013 I believe “Bills are killing us”) about hospital charge masters (why was nobody going after this decades ago?)... Finally I came across Dr. Keith Smith from the Oklahoma Surgery center and finally the puzzle pieces fell into place. So one does what one has to do: roll back the sleeves and get to work. Poured a couple of months into pricepain.com after hours (a friend working at hospitals in Wisconsin helped with some initial price finding), a NYT offspring that had gathered some medical prices send a cease and desist when we copied their ‘transparent prices for medical procedures in NY’ eye-roll. Eventually the government released Medicaid prices - a first big breakthrough. I had discussions on HN with Better Doctor who tried something similar - eventually they pivoted and focused on other things. We pitched to YC and a medical VC fund. Latter said in 2013 ‘there is at least 5 others that are working on this’ hahaha. Then came Obamacare and the future of free market / direct healthcare with price transparency became unclear - a super state nationalized Healthcare would have buried prices in yearly increasing taxes. So eventually I had to move on but always hoped that something like today’s news - more price transparency to allow for competition and improvements of quality/service - would eventually win out.

mirimir 7y ago
> A square gauze priced at the cost of an iPad,... Absurd list prices were used to screw Medicaid and Medicate. Because they often paid at 85% of list price. When commercial payers had negotiated as much as 90% discounts. But that doesn't work anymore, I think.

mirimir 7y ago

> A square gauze priced at the cost of an iPad,... Absurd list prices were used to screw Medicaid and Medicate. Because they often paid at 85% of list price. When commercial payers had negotiated as much as 90% discounts. But that doesn't work anymore, I think.