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Show HN: Compare prices that US hospitals charge patients, insurance companies

turquoise.health

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Re: Show HN: Compare prices that US hospitals charge patients, insurance companies

#41

Post by excannuck »

dominotw wrote: post #14
dnautics wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- paying for services for people who don't have/can't afford insurance. - medical malpractice insurance -> legal system - big pharma/med devices industry

Big pharma? Big pharma has actually reduced the hospitalization costs over the past two decades. Edit: can someone explain downvotes?. How is big pharma increasing hospital costs? please take a look at this, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2669633/ "The major empirical finding from this research is that medication use by Medicare beneficiaries is significantly negatively associated with hospital spending…

[dead]

Re: Show HN: Compare prices that US hospitals charge patients, insurance companies

#42

Post by burlesona »

forgingahead wrote: post #11

This was a big accomplishment of the Trump admin. Regardless of what your other opinions of his administration are, healthcare pricing transparency in the US is a very important step forward to improving the healthcare situation there. Source (one of many): https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-drugs/white-hou...

Came here to post the same. My guess is he will go down as the worst president in US history, but even a terrible administration can have a few noteworthy accomplishments. This and the airline reforms (1) will probably be remembered as the best things that came out of the Trump administration.

1: https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/president-trump-just-sign...

Re: Show HN: Compare prices that US hospitals charge patients, insurance companies

#43

Post by mrnickel001 »

subhro wrote: post #4

This seems to be the GoodRx of medical procedures. This is tremendously helpful. How do you plan to keep the data current? Also, in the US, is a patient realistically able to say, “Hospital X is able to get my compound fracture surgery done for 65% less. Match it or I walk”, especially when insurances have negotiated rates. Or is this only useful for people with no insurance?

Hey man! This is a great comment. I work with Turquoise. We're actually building some stuff where patients can collectively bargain outside their insurance. But for now, it's most useful to people with insurance that see that one hospital down the road has a lower rate for their given insurance. (EG, the blue cross rate is better the next town over). We're going to make it easier to filter for insurance shortly.

Also, very useful for cash pay.

Re: Show HN: Compare prices that US hospitals charge patients, insurance companies

#44

Post by dr_faustus »

It's always fascinating to see that even compared to prices you pay as a self-paying patient in Germany (which are already 1.5x - 2x higher than what the "public" insurances, ie. 85% of the population, pay for the same procedures), the prices in the US are about 5x to 10x higher. The standard of care seems to be quite comparable if you look at outcomes, so there must be huge inefficiences in the American system (doctors in Germany are consistently ranked as the highest paid academics, so I guess it cant be doctors' salaries alone).

Re: Show HN: Compare prices that US hospitals charge patients, insurance companies

#45

Post by nugget »

wjossey wrote: post #36
nugget wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2015 I did several months of due diligence in this market - price comparison for diagnostic imaging - before concluding that it wasn't feasible to build the product we wanted to build. This new law provides the data that we were unable to access (at scale) on our own. From the data we did get our hands on, I remember seeing price differences like $200 vs $4k for the exact same procedure. The low cost provider was…

For folks who don’t believe in universal medical coverage, this is part of the reason why it’s so inefficient for it not to exist. The uninsured person going to the hospital at 1AM that requires an MRI because slipped a disc in their back still ends up getting that MRI. When they fail to pay that bill, which would be 5%-10% of their annual earnings, we all still pay for it. We just decided to layer in debt collection…

My takeaway from all that research was the same. Almost everyone benefits from universal coverage but the system has to incentivize patients to shop around for the optimal balance of price, quality, and convenience. This can be accomplished with an annual deductible of a few thousand dollars perhaps capped at a % of income. Without this incentive, costs skyrocket. Price transparency is a pre-requisite without which consumers can't easily shop around, so this law is a giant leap forward in the right direction.

That is the #1 most effective thing that Americans can do to reduce health care costs. #2 would be to change the standard American diet and eat healthier to reduce rates of obesity and diabetes. Almost every other proposed structural change or intervention we looked at was minimal by comparison.

Re: Show HN: Compare prices that US hospitals charge patients, insurance companies

#46

Post by ageitgey »

hedora wrote: post #35

It would be nice if I could set my insurance plan once, and then see the cash and insured prices in the search results.

This is in the works! We hope to implement this as soon as we've cross-referenced all the plans across providers.

Re: Show HN: Compare prices that US hospitals charge patients, insurance companies

#47

Post by hedora »

the-dude wrote: post #28
ttul wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s too bad that all the other insane things he did will overshadow literally anything of value that he accomplished.

Could you enlighten me and name some of those things? Not things he said, but things he did according to you.

These are all well documented:

https://www.indy100.com/news/donald-trump-bad-things-list-b1...

There are 55 things on the list. There’s a mixture of things he said and things he did. As president, his words have real consequences, so drawing the line at “things he said” is strange.

Re: Show HN: Compare prices that US hospitals charge patients, insurance companies

#48

Post by emteycz »

dr_faustus wrote: post #44

It's always fascinating to see that even compared to prices you pay as a self-paying patient in Germany (which are already 1.5x - 2x higher than what the "public" insurances, ie. 85% of the population, pay for the same procedures), the prices in the US are about 5x to 10x higher. The standard of care seems to be quite comparable if you look at outcomes, so there must be huge inefficiences in the American system (doct…

I don't believe any medical professional in Germany has wage exceeding 150k EUR yearly after taxes - doctors in the US sometimes have multiples of that, coincidentally 5x to 10x more is not unusual.

Re: Show HN: Compare prices that US hospitals charge patients, insurance companies

#49

Post by _lqaf »

dr_faustus wrote: post #44

It's always fascinating to see that even compared to prices you pay as a self-paying patient in Germany (which are already 1.5x - 2x higher than what the "public" insurances, ie. 85% of the population, pay for the same procedures), the prices in the US are about 5x to 10x higher. The standard of care seems to be quite comparable if you look at outcomes, so there must be huge inefficiences in the American system (doct…

Capitalists are expensive.

Re: Show HN: Compare prices that US hospitals charge patients, insurance companies

#50

Post by Redoubts »

emteycz wrote: post #48
dr_faustus wrote: post #44

It's always fascinating to see that even compared to prices you pay as a self-paying patient in Germany (which are already 1.5x - 2x higher than what the "public" insurances, ie. 85% of the population, pay for the same procedures), the prices in the US are about 5x to 10x higher. The standard of care seems to be quite comparable if you look at outcomes, so there must be huge inefficiences in the American system (doct…

I don't believe any medical professional in Germany has wage exceeding 150k EUR yearly after taxes - doctors in the US sometimes have multiples of that, coincidentally 5x to 10x more is not unusual.

I’m sure German doctors don’t have oodles of student debt too.
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