With your host Charles Frohman and Co-Host Jim Grapek

Dean Jargo

Cash Patients & Cash Doctors Need a Middleman

The Cash “Markets” Rising to Enable the Panacea

Despite government-required price disclosure and effective cash shopping from ObamaCare’s high deductibles, patients struggle to shop on price.  

To solve this problem, entrepreneurs have created businesses that help families and employees meet with doctors - and practitioners of all disciplines - around immediate, full payment, but without the crippling demands of third parties around coding and bill chasing.  To help cash-paying patients and cash-friendly doctors find each other, marketplaces (like Uber, Airbnb, OpenTable, etc.) can serve as examples of the entrepreneurial solution.

One business, Fair Market Health, is a marketplace where providers can connect directly with patients and employee groups, without the hassle and interference of insurance carriers.  Fair Market Health is free for practitioners to list their services.  They set their price for services (no negotiations required) and are paid within days... without insurance coding, billing or collections efforts.

Can these cash-price, health care services improve access, affordability, or even quality?  Is price sensitive competition a key to true health reform?