Comment by acomar | Hacker News Reader

Comment by acomar | Hacker News Reader

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Yea, but to hire a medical billing advocate, you need: 1) knowledge/information that they exist and that hospital bills are BS, and 2) money to pay the advocate AND the reduced bill. If the final bill is $800 and the advocate gets a cut of the savings, how many people in dire straights are likely to be able to afford that? Keep in mind, most Americans don't have 1k in savings, living pay check to pay check because they have no choice. Facing a 100k bill, people are more likely to wait for the collector to show up and then declare bankruptcy, facing damage to their already poor credit, garnishment of already subsistence wages, etc..

I'm much less worried about the folks who pay it anyway than I am about the folks whose lives are destroyed by an industry predating on people in the worst of circumstances.

sounds like an opportunity....

For what? Lay out a business plan in this area for me that doesn't take money from the worst off.

If you make money off them but save them more money than you costs, it is still towards their benefit. The only problem occurs when you start working with the hospital to create even more arcane bills that you get into immoral territory.

That's exactly the circumstance I outlined previously. This plan has you taking the debts of somebody who cannot afford to pay, reducing them to something above the actual cost, then asking them to pay the higher amount. You are making money from the least able to pay and profiting from a system driving people into bankruptcy. I cannot imagine starting such a company without serious empathy issues.

I don't have all the answers, but here's where i'd start:

https://gist.github.com/ndarville/4295324

I'd start with a mentally forced mashup for each to get a few that might work. e.g. "If i've got to make money by lead generation with a medical bill review service/app, how could i do it?"

Then i'd focus on how we'd drive value to the consumers.

Then think about driving value to others parties who may be willing to pay for something similar.

ie would pharmaceutical and medical device companies be willing to communicate directly with these consumers?

note i'm not saying its easy by any means, but i do think its a real problem that could take off if an elegant and worthwhile solution came about.

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