Reducing Medical Costs

Health care cost is a huge LBYM issue. It is probably the largest expenditure that I make, without knowing the cost in advance, and without any realistic way to comparison shop.

It's a big problem, especially for people who have high-deductible health insurance, or, especially, no health insurance, at all (which is 47 million Americans).

Gradually, in a small way, the logjam may be breaking.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/he...i/7WT2SAtDAbLg

“The average provider — doctors or hospitals — has between 5 and 100 reimbursement rates for the exact same procedure,” said Timothy Cahill, president of My Medical Control (mymedicalcontrol.com). “A hospital chain with multiple locations may have 150 rates for the same procedure. Consumers don't know this.” [Yikes! I sure didn't know that! - W]

The varying reimbursement schedules, negotiated between the nation's 850,000 providers and more than 6,000 health plans, have been kept all but secret. Consumers almost never get information on prices before treatment. Even insurers do not know what other health plans are paying. ...

Over the next decade, health care spending in the United States will double, to more than $4 trillion a year, a fifth of the gross domestic product...

Despite the complexity, the Internet has begun to open a window on this surreal world, allowing consumers to compare costs and, occasionally, to discover affordable alternatives. ...

Extrapolating from federal Medicare data, Vimo (vimo.com), a small Web start-up in Mountain View, Calif., tries to estimate the fees negotiated by insurers for a variety of hospital procedures. ...

My Medical Control claims to know the lowest rate that a hospital or clinic has already accepted for a given service. If a client is not being billed at that price, then the company's representatives will call and bargain for it. - — minus a 35 percent collection fee. [end quote]

This sounds quite worthwhile.

http://www.mymedicalcontrol.com/

I think it's just the opening wedge. As long as the U.S. has such a cockamamie system, there will be a big business opportunity, for anyone who can reduce medical bills. If anyone else has hints about how to reduce health care costs, I sure would like to hear them.

Wendy