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Tacking on to your comment, it's important to realize that hospitals do not usually lose money on patients that can not pay for routine procedures (because of g

by gen220 7y ago

Tacking on to your comment, it's important to realize that hospitals do not usually lose money on patients that can not pay for routine procedures (because of generous government subsidies). The substance of this article certainly smells funny (experian is known to be shady), but it is not as nefarious as the author makes it out to be. For context, hospitals are only likely to lose money on very complex patient cases, i.e. the kinds of program described in the video. In those situations, it makes sense that hospitals will want to make sure that either (1) the patient will be able to pay or (2) charities or government programs will cover them, once they apply. Experian's system claims to helps them make that assessment. Will that lead to patients being turned away? Maybe, but it's not a straightforward conclusion, like you imply. The comparison to Uber ratings holds no water. The reality is that American healthcare is a complicated market with many sources of revenue that aren't patients' bank accounts (charities, govt subsidies, insurance), and it doesn't lend itself well to this kind of oversimplifying analysis.

tptacek 7y ago
To be clear: the impression I got from the video was that this was a charity that the provider was offering, not that they were using Experian to validate eligibility for other charities.
- gen220 7y ago
  The revenue for their charity is most likely dependent on government subsidies that are contingent on the financial status of the patients they're helping. Even though they're determining eligibility for "their own" charity, they're likely determining eligibility for "other charities", if you follow the money.
  - tptacek 7y ago
    I don't know what this has to do with my point; you can do this "follow the money" analysis to take any argument anywhere. On message boards, at least, it seems to turn out that it's almost never a good idea to just "follow the money".

by gen220 7y ago

tptacek 7y ago

To be clear: the impression I got from the video was that this was a charity that the provider was offering, not that they were using Experian to validate eligibility for other charities.

gen220 7y ago
The revenue for their charity is most likely dependent on government subsidies that are contingent on the financial status of the patients they're helping. Even though they're determining eligibility for "their own" charity, they're likely determining eligibility for "other charities", if you follow the money.
- tptacek 7y ago
  I don't know what this has to do with my point; you can do this "follow the money" analysis to take any argument anywhere. On message boards, at least, it seems to turn out that it's almost never a good idea to just "follow the money".