Health Care Cost Fix

Lionel Richie was on CNBC yesterday talking about HEAL, a healthcare startup that can fix our ever rising healthcare costs.

I remember hearing about HEAL about a year earlier on CNBC and back then I didn’t understand how it would survive.

HEAL is about home visits from a doctor.
Like it was in the old days.
As Lionel said, “this is how it was when I was a kid”.

Well, true, but this isn’t a fix for the healthcare system.

The gist is, $100 house calls.
More personal time from a doc.

Sorry, those two things conflict.

I’m not against house calls, but you can’t expect a house call to be cheaper than an office visit.

The reality of a doctors business is this: the doctor is the primary cog in the machine. They charge for their time.
This is why a visit to the doctors office has become such a bummer.
You show up early.
You still wait 20-30 minutes past your appointment time.
You barely see the doc.
You leave.

Doctors make money on seeing more patients, not fewer.

Simply compare how many patients a doc can see in a day travelling around town to different houses vs. lining people up at one office.
Basic efficiency of time.

What really needs to be looked at is why costs are so high.

For instance, if you are not using goodrx.com to find the best pricing in town on prescription drugs, you are probably spending too much.

Why the same generic drug in town can vary up to 100% depending on where you go is a huge problem.

Price transparency in drugs and doctor visits is key.

Understanding what it costs is important.

Health savings accounts, where YOU the patient know exactly what is going on with costs will help this mess.