Opportunities for startups in health insurance industry | Hacker News Reader

Opportunities for startups in health insurance industry

itleaderstoday.com

19 pointsraheemm17 comments

I was in a start-up in the health insurance industry (we just got acquired by a much larger company). While I agree there are some opportunities, mostly in the areas of information, what most people don't realize is that health insurance is highly regulated and hence a very expensive business to be in. It's not like you can just throw up some web site and start selling insurance. It's much more complicated than that.

I think most people realize that the medical industry is highly regulated and that's why they overlook the opportunities there.

That is a great reason to be in the game. Higher barriers to entry behind you are often a good thing.

Plus it seems like we've been seeing a growing trend of posts saying "Web companies are so cheap to start that VC investment isn't necessary". The VCs need somewhere to invest that actually uses the money.

I think the opportunity lies in helping large health insurance companies becoming more consumer oriented. With the health reforms, these companies have a pool of 30 million customers - most of whom will be buying health insurance directly (instead of via an employer). So health insurance companies now have to figure out how to serve this customer base.

There are opportunities for startups all over the place that are mostly ignored because your average 20-something hacker/founder has no idea these problems exist.

Also, transcripts would be nice.

Thanks. I'll start putting up transcripts in the next few weeks.

Great breakdown and appreciate that you're responding here - would also request HTML5 format video for iphone / ipad viewing for future episodes :)

Wow! That's a great suggestion - I'm going to look into it!

I was unaware that the health reform that passed created a more powerful consumer market. Lack of preexisting conditions banning means you can get individual insurance, but most people would opt to get it through an employer for cost reasons -- no?

The measure to create a consumer market -- shifting tax benefits to individuals not corporations -- never was introduced.

(I could be wrong. After 50,000 iterations, I don't think anyone knows what passed.)

The current uninsured group are mostly low-wage earners (McDonald's workers), self-employed, small businesses or unemployed. Except for the low-wage workers, the rest of the consumers will likely be buying insurance directly from the health insurance companies.

Last week there was a post on HN about being addicted to information. I am one of those people and this project (IT Leaders Today) is an attempt to make a living on my information addiction. I would appreciate the community's comments on making it better. My nod to Andrew Warner of Mixergy, who is the inspiration behind this project.

I think few of the problems in the health insurance industry are technical

Well, how many problems do you need?

There's certainly a lot of opportunity, specifically in enabling the physicians office with more powerful and usable software. Remember, most healthcare in the US still happens within the walls of a small medical practices.

One area that doctors' offices are hurting is in billing to the insurance companies. Its a whole bunch of paperwork specific to each insurance companies. If a site is created that allows the doctor's office to electronically enter each claim and then that claim is automatically submitted to the insurance company, there would be quite a bit of efficiency at the doctor's office.

raheemm, this is precisely where our company fits in: www.carecloud.com

Mike, I just checked your site! Would you be interested in sharing carecloud's story? Please ping me at raheemm1 at yahoo.

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