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Show HN: Eligible API for 700+ Health Insurance Companies

eligibleapi.com

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Re: Show HN: Eligible API for 700+ Health Insurance Companies

#91
Healthcare and Health IT are plagued with an insurmountable amount of complexity, administrative burden and draconian policies which hinder a lot of the potential for innovation.

Solutions like this are absolutely vital in getting the next generation of startups, developers, and healthcare providers the kind of infrastructure that can otherwise be cost-prohibitive.

It's really great to see someone hyper-focused on solving one part of the puzzle.

Re: Show HN: Eligible API for 700+ Health Insurance Companies

#92

Healthcare and Health IT are plagued with an insurmountable amount of complexity, administrative burden and draconian policies which hinder a lot of the potential for innovation. Solutions like this are absolutely vital in getting the next generation of startups, developers, and healthcare providers the kind of infrastructure that can otherwise be cost-prohibitive. It's really great to see someone hyper-focused on so…

Thanks Mike. We are starting at the source and will not leave it until there is a genuine shift in how eligibility for healthcare is handled.

Re: Show HN: Eligible API for 700+ Health Insurance Companies

#93
post #45

The deeply nested JSON (9 levels) seems difficult to understand without some kind of schema/detailed docs - though maybe domain users are already familiar with the underlying data's schema? Part of the problem is intrinsic data complexity, aside from EDI format. https://eligibleapi.com/restful-json-api/response Also, it's simulating JSON [] lists as objects with fields named "Item #1", "Item #2", ... Seems an odd cho…

implemented! thanks.

Re: Show HN: Eligible API for 700+ Health Insurance Companies

#94
post #47

I applaud the initiative, but I think the JSON needs to be friendlier. * Use REST. * Use HTTP Basic auth instead of cluttering the URL query string with the API key. * Use ISO 8601 for dates, no exceptions. * Use lower_case or lowerCamelCased keys. * Don't use spaces or other non-alphanumeric/underscore characters in keys, otherwise you can't easily index child objects with dot notation in many languages. * Instead o…

> Use HTTP Basic auth instead of cluttering the URL query string with the API key. Most APIs I've seen have moved off of HTTP basic auth, usually into including it as a separate header. Doesn't necessarily mean much, but it does mean it's not standard practice by any means.

An Oauth2 token via http header works very well. Of course, you'll want to send only encrypted requests.

Re: Show HN: Eligible API for 700+ Health Insurance Companies

#95
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty crazy. I think I consider Meddata to be such a big player because of their extensive payer list. Also, we use Meddata as a "backup" route for when our more direct (and free) connections are unavailable. I'm curious to learn more about the history of the company. From my experience the software isn't necessarily the hard part. The hard part is setting up all of the trading partner relationships with paye…

Yep, that was the hard part. Our sales team was three people, including the CEO, and they also had to sell the product to providers. Somehow they managed. We actually started with referrals. Providers were filling out paper forms and faxing them. Every payer had its own rules, its own identifiers for providers, its own forms. We put everything on a website and reduced a ten-minute process to thirty seconds. We got ou…

Very cool Dennis, I'd love to connect with you to hear more about your experience. Please email me k@eligibleapi.com
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