Health insurance markets predicted to fundamentally change
January 24, 2014
At DocSpot, our mission is to connect people with the right health care by helping them navigate publicly available information. We believe the first step of that mission is to help connect people with an appropriate medical provider, and we look forward to helping people navigate other aspects of their care as the opportunities arise. We are just at the start of that mission, so we hope you will come back often to see how things are developing.
An underlying philosophy of our work is that right care means different things to different people. We also recognize that doctors are multidimensional people. So, instead of trying to determine which doctors are "better" than others, we offer a variety of filter options that individuals can apply to more quickly discover providers that fit their needs.
January 24, 2014
Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini is quoted as saying that the health insurance market of 2020 will be "a fundamentally different marketplace than today." Ominously, Mr. Bertolini said that "Advertising is the game." Mr. Bertolini's assumption seems to be that health insurance companies won't be able to differentiate themselves on product or cost.
It's a sad time for the consumers when companies no longer feel that they can differentiate themselves by offering a superior product or at least by offering superior value. Those advertising dollars mean higher overhead for the consumer without tangible benefit. Personally, it seems that health insurance companies have a long way to go before succumbing to the notion of being a pure commodity. For example, how about an effective and simple-to-use cost transparency tool that helps patients select which providers to visit? Or, what about policies that encourage healthier habits? There seem to be tremendous opportunities for innovation.
January 17, 2014
Dr. Leana Wen started a campaign among health care professionals, encouraging them to voluntarily pledge to always disclose any potential conflict of interests (e.g. payments from pharmaceutical companies). It is interesting to note that while the campaign is not lobbying for regulatory reform, Dr. Wen has received hostile responses from her colleagues. Someone who is too busy or is simply opposed to personally revealing potential conflicts of interests could simply choose not to participate -- so, why the animosity?
Dr. Wen addresses some of the arguments that have been put forth, including the paternalistic view that patients basically "can't handle the truth." We agree with her that it "should be up to the patients to decide what is relevant to them." Indeed, we look forward to when CMS will enable greater transparency regarding a physicians' financial relationships.
January 10, 2014
Over the past several months, we've kept track of some queries that our site hasn't understood. On occasion, we would find some rare conditions that we had overlooked, and we would train our software accordingly. But over and over, we kept finding common searches that our form should have been able to process but didn't: insurance companies, languages, patient age groups. We had incorrectly assumed that people would be content to enter the attributes they were looking for piece by piece.
Google has trained us as internet consumers to view search boxes as magical, all-purpose tools that will understand just about anything we throw at them. While we cannot purport to deliver the right set of results every single time, we can nevertheless try to make it easier for you to find the health care professionals you are looking for. To that end, we have upgraded our search box so that you can type in more complicated searches without having to go through all of the check boxes on the results page. Now you can type in "orthopedic surgery aetna" and you'll immediately see a list of orthopedists who accept Aetna. "Spanish BCBS" will give you information on health care providers who speak Spanish and accept Blue Cross Blue Shield.
We are constantly striving to make our site more helpful and easier to use for patients and professionals alike. Please don't hesitate to let us know.
January 01, 2014
We hope you all had a great holiday season and we hope that you have an even better year ahead of you.
Happy New Year!
December 26, 2013
It's been a terrific year for the team here at DocSpot. We're glad to have some time away from the office, and will be back at it next year.
Merry Christmas!