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Comment by conanbatt | Hacker News Reader

The doctor doesn't know what the claim is going to be. It takes sometimes weeks to know how much you charge at all.

This is because insurance companies pay in base on what you did or how long you did it. You itemize each visit like a tax return that later gets reviewed. Then someone reads the return and thinks if it makes any sense.

After that, they pay back the doctor, but according to the plan, they also have to charge the patient the copay.

That said, a doctors office that is only cash will get very little patients. Because people that are employed will not go to a cash-only doctor's office.

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Not true. I own and run a cash only doctor's office. Coming to us is cheaper than most insurance co-pays.

Your posts are pretty interesting. If you don't mind a couple questions:

- What range of services do you offer? Do you take care of broken bones? Long-term illnesses? What kinds of things do you refer people to a full hospital for?

- Are there many offices like yours around? How unusual is your office?

- How easily could you build an entire hospital on this model? What would the limits of that be?

We run a primary care clinic. The specific type of clinic we run is called "direct primary care". There are around 800 clinics like ours in the United States but the service is generally catered to the wealthy. For more details about the scope of practice you can read the following link.[0] When we cannot provide a service in house we usually help someone navigate the medical system. There is a lot of information asymmetry when dealing with healthcare and we help even that out for our clients. We also partner with other companies to get reduced prices on imaging, labs, and other services.

I don't believe you can run an entire hospital on this model. Hospitals/insurance are best suited for unpredictable events. Our model is great for chronic and predictable events.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_care_physician#Scope_o...

Not OP, but I'm familiar with a couple primary care providers that don't file insurance claims. It's refreshing to see up-front pricing on their website for services they offer, e.g.: https://www.palmettoproactive.com/services-pricing

I agree! Its great, but lots of people have insurance already so they want to use that to get their primary care, so that 200 dollar visit becomes 40 bucks.

Are you primary care? Because I cant see a primary care competing on price vs insurance that charges 20 dollars/30% on copay.

It depends on what your deductible is. With the increasing cost of healthcare, we are seeing companies go with higher and higher deductible plans. We don't compete solely on price, however our prices are extremely competitive even for people who have insurance. (we are often cheaper than medicare/medicaid) We also work with businesses as part of their benefit plans. The major benefit of this system is time, we can schedule longer appointments with a more flexible schedule than most other doctor's offices.

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