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Posted

Doctors' salaries account for 8% of health care spending.

way to misunderstand the point. the "mark up" in health care prices for the uninsured is a major reason that even wealthy folks can't afford to be self insured. if everyone paid what blue cross or medicare negotiated as their usual and customary rates, many systemic healthcare problems would seem less daunting. and 8% of a massive number is still a very big number.

Posted

way to misunderstand the point. the "mark up" in health care prices for the uninsured is a major reason that even wealthy folks can't afford to be self insured. if everyone paid what blue cross or medicare negotiated as their usual and customary rates, many systemic healthcare problems would seem less daunting. and 8% of a massive number is still a very big number.

As you (should) know, doctors fees are negotiable. And 92% if a massive number is a much larger number. As for markups,

Posted

Hilarious that you believe government is the solution to inflated third party billing.

 

You'll note that before Medicare (the largest price fixing entity on the planet) we didn't have these sorts of problems.

 

We also couldn't do much for people either.... expensive medical innovation and cutting edge tech has drive up cost/prices, we can also treatment almost everything.

 

But yes, TPA and the "claims" process is a trainwreck... glad we doubled down on it.

Posted

 

 

We also couldn't do much for people either.... expensive medical innovation and cutting edge tech has drive up cost/prices, we can also treatment almost everything.

 

But yes, TPA and the "claims" process is a trainwreck... glad we doubled down on it.

Market forces and exponential technological growth are a remarkable thing. They drive down prices everywhere they are allowed to take hold. Medicine is not one of those places.

Posted

Market forces and exponential technological growth are a remarkable thing. They drive down prices everywhere they are allowed to take hold. Medicine is not one of those places.

 

Glad to see that you actually learned something in Econ 102 that turned out to be correct.

Posted (edited)

Market forces and exponential technological growth are a remarkable thing. They drive down prices everywhere they are allowed to take hold. Medicine is not one of those places.

Margins is the problem. Health care doesn't have any. They can't afford to take risks, and God forbid they make a profit...which would give them the capital to take risks. Look at all the :o that has come from hospital mergers. Yeah, so if anybody actually makes enough $ to actually benefit from technology...they get excoriated...for making the money they need to do so. :wallbash:

 

I've had to contort myself in all sorts of ways to try to fit what we do into this space. In other industries? No problem. The upside? We've made some kickass stuff over the years as a result, and other industries can't believe we can charge so little for what we do. We've even not closed deals...because they thought we were lying. :blink: Health care too: A large Mid-Western State's VA system CIO told me "we just don't think you can do the job for as little as you quoted". :blink:

 

But, lack of money = health care has routinely attracted sub-standard IT people, and those sub-standard IT people have burned their clients more than a few times. I've heard lots of stories. It's very hard to get people to trust you in health care. Very hard.

 

Then? You have the big guys, like Cerner, GE, McKesson, who are essentially too big to care about making better things, and they themselves either don't have the margins, or, see the risk of real innovation as too great for the return. They'd rather put their $ into big ticket hardware stuff, and forget about doing software/process work. Some of these clowns are still running DBs from the 70s. Dumb, fat, and happy to collect their maintenance fees. That's about it.

 

Thus: little changes. It's become a vicious cycle.

 

We break it, with a jackhammer. But, we are just a small firm in a sea of incompetence. And, there's only so much we can do. I've looked into VC funding and the like, but, most of those guys want us to become GE v2.0. They don't yet understand my approach. Although, there is a group, supported by the big guys, that does get it. We're working with them...but I believe it's going to be a long haul to get the kind of funding I need to make a huge difference. I may be wrong. We'll see.

Edited by OCinBuffalo
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