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GoodRx/Coupons creates some odd problems/interactions with insurance. We were prescribed liquid Tamiflu (Oseltamivir) for a child with the flu. We have high de
by Someone1234 6y ago
GoodRx/Coupons creates some odd problems/interactions with insurance.
We were prescribed liquid Tamiflu (Oseltamivir) for a child with the flu. We have high deductible health insurance. The insurance "discount" cost was $105. The GoodRx price was $40.
But this creates an odd and illogical conflict: Hypothetically we should always pay the lower price, but the higher price counts towards our insurance yearly deductible and out-of-pocket maximum, whereas the GoodRx price does not.
So we have a type of insurance specifically designed to encourage us to find cheaper medical services, but GoodRx undercuts the insurance itself, forcing us to choose between our deductible and the rational price.
The US should just outright ban insurance "discounts" (which are a fiction anyway). That way everyone pays just one price: Cash, insurance, Medicaid, or whatever. Plus then medical providers can actually publish realistic price lists instead of fiction with "discounts" on the fiction.
- nvahalik 6y agoWe don’t have insurance. We find the lowest price and pay it. This year alone we’ve saved thousands using stuff like GoodRx and just paying cash. Edit: not to mention no premiums.
- Someone1234 6y agoWhich is helpful, but you shouldn't be in that position and it is really just a dice roll away from becoming unsustainable. The system is horribly broken. GoodRx helps people, but GoodRx are a symptom of a much bigger problem rather than a solution.
- JMTQp8lwXL 6y agoIt's a strategy that works for the small things: a doctor's visit for the flu, ubiquitously manufactured cheap prescription drugs, etc. It's when you face a real medical emergency and have a six-figure hospital bill, that you truly need health insurance.
- klenwell 6y agoNPR reported a story like this this week: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/08/25/904517805/veterans-appendectomy-launches-excruciating-months-long-battle-over-bill https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/08/25/9045178... They are not hard to find. This one also included some dodgy billing practices by the medical provider. Consistent with industry standards.
- sneak 6y agoYou can do both: carry insurance and not use it outside of catastrophies, and just pay cash for most minor/routine things. This is what I do.
- timbo1642 6y agoWhat you're doing makes zero sense. A physical is EXPENSIVE, so why pay for it? Doctors visits aren't cheap either. Also makes no sense to pay cash for RX drugs in almost all cases
- rurp 6y agoOf course even with insurance you might end up owing huge amounts. A friend of mine was in a terrible accident, had insurance, and still racked up massive bills. The last number I heard from him was $800k and he was wondering if it would get over a million. I have insurance now but have gone without it at times and really don't know what the best route is. If I get injured badly with insurance I know there's still a decent chance I'm ruined financially.
- samename 6y agoWhat else do you use besides GoodRx?
- tehlike 6y agoI'll give you a funnier example. When my wife was pregnant last year, one of the genetic test we needed to get would have costed us somewhere around 3-4K$ (and we also heard people on same insurance being quoted for up to 8K$). I asked the cash price, they told us something like 250-300$. We paid cash price, even if it costed us more since birth alone would have hit oop maximum rightaway. IT still felt good for that particular one since the disparity was too big. Us insurance system is a racket.
- sbierwagen 6y agoObnoxious fact: the past tense for "cost", when referring to price, is... "cost": https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/88872/which-one-is-correct-cost-or-costed https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/88872/which-one-is-c... "Costed" is something of a hypercorrection, only used in some rare business contexts.
- takeda 6y agoFrom this[1], seems like their prices can go toward the deductible. Anyway, I agree with you regarding the fake price gouging, so you can get the insurance "discount". If we could pay prices that insurance pay, well, they are expensive, but they aren't "ruin you financially" expensive. And if the prices would be clear and same of everyone we finally could get them down through competition. [1] https://www.goodrx.com/blog/how-to-use-goodrx-with-high-deductible-health-plan-hsa/ https://www.goodrx.com/blog/how-to-use-goodrx-with-high-dedu...
- dmurray 6y agoI'm not from the US and I know people love to criticise the US healthcare system. What's crazy to me about this is that the insurance doesn't work like a normal home or car insurance: your car gets destroyed, you buy another car of the same replacement value, you send the insurance company the receipt. Maybe you fight with them over the exact replacement cost, but you get pretty close. Instead, it sounds like the insurance company provides you with an opportunity to buy medicine from them at a hopefully discounted price. Or if not technically from them - from their business partner. Private health insurance in other parts of the world looks a bit like this with regard to hospital treatment. There's a private hospital who's partnered with the insurance company, and you can only get treated there if you have private insurance. Which makes a certain amount of sense as hospital treatment is not a commodity. But to apply the same logic to the part of the treatment that is commoditized - the drugs - is a real triumph of capitalism.
- est31 6y agoMany drugs are not commoditized (some might be). Often you have only one or two manufacturers for some ingredient of a drug and if one of them has issues, the entire supply chain collapses.
- AtlasBarfed 6y agoYou mean like Enron where they paid power companies to shut down to increase spot prices and manipulate markets? Monopolization of commodity drugs and the large price increases in the US mirrors the cartel/monopoly conditions that have pervaded practically every major market in the US. Insulin and Epipens are two common examples of this, and it has killed people. And the entire drama around Martin Shrekli.
- rdtwo 6y agoIn the us insurance is like joining Costco so you can get access to prices and service it’s not actually insurance
- Igelau 6y agoMore and more it's that the insurance company lets you pay them a premium while you also pay your bills in full. Then if you hit your obscenely high deductible they start helping. Then if you hit your out of pocket maximum they cover it fully. At the end of the calendar year, everything resets, though your premium and deductible probably increased by a greater rate than your wage did.
- refurb 6y agoEven though the lower price means you have more room in your deductible, it's it case outlay that matters? You may never hit your deductible for the year.