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Any startups addressing this somehow? Or is the regulatory framework waaaaay too favored towards incumbents to even fight? This shit is beyond frustrating. He
by costcopizza 5y ago
Any startups addressing this somehow?
Or is the regulatory framework waaaaay too favored towards incumbents to even fight?
This shit is beyond frustrating. Healthcare could actually be semi reasonable if prices were as transparent as other industries.
- jehlakj 5y agoI’d be surprised to hear successful startups with all these regulations
- dmitriid 5y agoIsn't it obvious that this cannot be solved by startups?
- AlexB138 5y agoIt's always obvious that something can't be solved by a startup until it is. That's what "disruption" and "innovation" are.
- ryneandal 5y agoIt doesn't need disrupted, it needs to be criminalized. The application of capitalism in circumstances where the alternative is illness and/or death is tantamount to extortion.
- missedthecue 5y agoSo should we nationalize the farms to keep the dirty capitalists off of our food supply?
- ryneandal 5y agoNo legitimate rebuttal other than a whataboutism. Blocked.
- f6v 5y agoThe German healthcare insurance is basically run by the state. The healthcare is slow and far from perfect overall. But I didn’t hear as many people complaining. I never paid for a hospital visit or a surgery. My only expenses were 10 euro/day for hospital stay that included free meals and 2-patient room with our own bathroom.
- hda111 5y agoIn Germany it’s two class medicine. 10% have private insurance and 90% are in the statuary health insurance. Those in private insurance have to pay most things on their own and need to try getting it back from insurance company.
- jandrese 5y agoSome kind of Expedia for hospitals? Some company that somehow extracts the actual price information from the hospitals and lets you comparison shop? Ultimately this is a technological solution to a political problem. It's going to be difficult to implement and face a lot of pushback from the entrenched incumbents.
- Sr_developer 5y agoWait arent you willing to put your health on the hands of the people who brought us Theranos, pets.com, and a DRM-laden juice-squeezer? "Unfortunately this transfusion cannot be given to you because there is a mismatch between its version and the versions approved in your database record. Please contact a representative or call our support line"
- loonster 5y agoBut it can be solved by startups: Procedure Insurance.
- dmitriid 5y agoAh yes. Let's "solve" the insurance mess by introducing more insurance middlemen.
- mkmk 5y agohttps://turquoise.health/ https://turquoise.health/ is one notable example.
- bob33212 5y agoThe hospitals and the insurance companies do not want this to happen. Some politicians may want this to happen but others don't so the regulations are not forcing this to happen. It isn't something that software can fix.
- tolbish 5y agoCould software help identify hospitals and insurance companies who are engaging in this?
- jrochkind1 5y agoProbably, but who would pay for it? I don't know if it takes software, the OP did it fine on their own.
- f6v 5y ago> Any startups addressing this somehow? With the amount of money at stake, I’d imagine organizations and politicians would bury any startup before you say “Seed round”.
- arwhatever 5y agoI would accept a life-saving medical intervention that drained my life savings if I were convinced that the price were competitive and fair. But under our current system, this could not be further from the case.
- OminousWeapons 5y agoIt is a difficult problem because there is no one price to show. Almost every user might be shown a different price. To my knowledge, at many orgs, insurance is actually funded directly by the employer; they do not contribute to a massive general pool along with other orgs. That individual employer helps set rates and coverage for their individual plan, and they might hire a big payer (insurance company) like Blue Cross Blue Shield to administer the plan that they created. This means that every single employer might have different payment rules and rates for a given procedure or item, and rates can also be hospital dependent or provider dependent. Additionally, many insurance companies require pre-approval (prior authorization AKA prior auth) for more expensive procedures or procedures / meds that are being prescribed outside of normal practice. This requires the provider (doctor) to call the payer (insurance provider), explain the situation, and see if a certain procedure will be covered. Before this is done, it is impossible to quote a price. Finally, we also have a class of people without insurance. So can real time price quotes be done? Maybe, but it would be a lot of work. The big payers do have API endpoints you can hit to get coverage information for a given user and I believe pricing data for a given procedure for that user. There are also clearing houses of sorts which can help you route traffic to the right endpoint. You would still need to get pricing data from hospitals which largely aren't interconnected for users without insurance and also deal with the prior auth situation.
- ProAm 5y agoLike an Uber for hospitals?
- Spivak 5y agoYes, actually -- aver.io. Their website is actually really bad at explaining it but their whole business is helping practices and insurance companies figure out how much procedures actually cost both for this and so they can switch to a "fee-for-outcome" model.