I hoped to find answers in this Forbes articles but all I get are vague claims like:
>The use of blockchain technology will hopefully avoid the all too common problem that occurs when a claim comes through from the provider and it mismatches with the information the insurance company has in its provider directory.
>CMS found 52% of Medicare Advantage plan provider “directory locations had at least one inaccuracy.”
How will the blockchain magically make sure that everybody updates all information? And if people suddenly somehow make sure to publish and update the info then why can't they do the same thing with boring old technology?
>“With increasing state and federal requirements relating to provider data maintenance and quality, tackling the high cost and redundancy in this space is a logical starting point"
Backups and redundancy existed before the Blockchain, also I'm sure nobody wants to publish private user data publicly for all to see so it's not like random users around the world are going to mirror your database.
So you end up with a "Blockchain" where only trusted people can access and contribute. What's the advantage over spinning up a PostgreSQL intance? I mean when you read the Quorum wiki[1] it reads more like a database setup guide than spinning a bitcoin node:
>The P2P layer has been modified to only allow connections to/from permissioned nodes.
And just like that the entire point of the Blockchain vanishes.
>‘Proof of work’ consensus algorithm has been replaced with ‘QuorumChain’ consensus, a vote-based consensus mechanism.
Surely I hope that medicare providers obey to some top-down rules to operate, not a consensus on a Blockchain. And given that all nodes are whitelisted anyway I'm not sure why such a voting is even required.
It's pretty crazy to me that when I read articles like this one on Forbes or the Quorum website I see pages after pages of hype and praise and yet so far nobody is capable of giving me one simple use case demonstrating the practical usefulness of the technology outside of cryptocurrencies.
The more I read about it the more I become convinced that the only real feature of the Blockchain is being a magic word that makes suits throw money at you. Maybe I'm just too dumb to understand it.