HealthCost Has the Cure for Healthcare: Truly Free Markets

ISLE OF PALMS, S.C., April 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- HealthCost, the only network offering an open healthcare marketplace, has launched HealthCost.com to give control back to patients and providers. Through the website and mobile app, HealthCost allows providers to set their own market rates and patients to shop, compare and, eventually, lock-in specific rates that fit their need.

"While open pricing and comparison shopping exists in every other area of our economy—from airlines to automobiles—you won't find them in healthcare. Until now," said William Moore, founding partner at HealthCost. "We're completely changing the patient and provider relationship by putting both in control of healthcare costs."

Patients now shop for common outpatient procedures
Through HealthCost.com, patients can now search for the exact cost of individual healthcare procedures. While other search tools only share average regional rates, HealthCost openly displays actual costs from each individual doctor and the facility where he or she performs the procedure. Consumers can also compare how costs for the same procedure changes from facility to facility. Access to the HealthCost.com network is open to all, giving any consumer the ability to shop and compare healthcare costs independently of the out-of-network rates that have traditionally worked against consumer freedom.

"Until now, consumers have been kept in the dark about healthcare costs; always being told, it's too complex for them to understand," said Douglas Tardio, founding partner at HealthCost. "Patients have no idea that the cost of a procedure from the same doctor can have drastically different rates when performed at different facilities. Do a search for a colonoscopy in New York City and you'll see a rate of $4,000 at one hospital and with the exact same doctor performing the same procedure you'll see a cost of more than $10,000 at a different hospital. Patients need to know this information so they can make empowered healthcare decisions."

Providers now set their rates
Through HealthCost.com, healthcare providers can now expand beyond their current health plan networks and reach new traditionally unreachable patients. Before HealthCost, providers struggled to reach the millions of uninsured, self-insured small businesses and out-of-network and other self-pay consumers. Once providers join the HealthCost Networks^SM, they have the freedom to control their rates based on the true value of their medical education, experience in caring for patients and the quality of the facility and its staff.

The Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-profit organization focusing on national health issues, reports there are 28 million nonelderly uninsured consumers and 63 percent of covered workers are in a self-funded health plan.

"We know there are upwards of 50 million people that aren't being reached by healthcare providers today," said Russell Amico, M.D., founding partner at HealthCost. "When providers control their rates and patients are given the knowledge they need to make the best healthcare decision for themselves and their families, everyone wins."

Believing that a free, transparent healthcare marketplace could complement traditional plan-based solutions for consumers, HealthCost was formed when six colleagues joined forces in 2016. All with differing backgrounds but one shared mission, William Moore, Douglas Tardio, Russell Amico, M.D., Frank Frenzel, William Tausig and Robert Moses are all founding partners of the tech startup, aimed at bringing simple, borderless, and market driven choice to every consumer for the most common healthcare needs. HealthCost.com includes searchable charges and quality data provided by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), however, providers have the ability to join the network and manage their own rates.

About HealthCost:
HealthCost is the only network offering an open marketplace, through HealthCost.com, for setting, comparing and locking-in healthcare costs. Like other transparent, open markets, consumers and providers (as buyers and vendors) now mutually drive costs and demand. HealthCost providers have the freedom to set their own rates and reach new consumers, no matter how, or if, they are insured. HealthCost consumers have the freedom to comparison shop and lock-in rates with any provider they choose.

SOURCE HealthCost