Many opponents of government reform of the nation’s health care system say health care should become more consumer-driven to lower costs.
Alex Fair developed an online tool to support consumer-driven health care models. Fair lives in New York City, but previously attended the Medical College of Wisconsin in Wauwatosa. He recently founded FairCareMD, an online marketplace where health care providers can offer their services at reasonable rates for patients paying out of pocket.
Fair launched the online marketplace in the Greater Manhattan area earlier this year, but is currently in the process of rolling out the service in other markets across the country, including Milwaukee.
“FairCareMD is directed at consumers who are uninsured, underinsured have high deductible plans, HSAs (health savings accounts), or are just trying to receive a treatment or procedure their insurance doesn’t cover,” Fair said. “Our goal is to connect consumers with health care providers of all types that will charge them ‘fair’ prices for their services. It’s also a way for medical professionals to expand their patient base.”
According to Fair, the online marketplace allows medical and health care providers of all types to sign up for FairCareMD and establish a profile on the site.
“The medical professionals can set up a profile similar to that of LinkedIn that resembles a sort of digital credential card,” Fair said. “The profile includes a photograph of the health care provider, credentials, specialties, and links to their Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn pages. The profiles can also include videos, photographs and use Google maps for directions to their facility.”
Fair came up with the FairCareMD model when he was in search of a dentist who charged less than $250 an exam for his children, he said.
“Professionally, I’ve done a lot of work in medical billing, and as a professional I realized a lot of health care providers would often provide care for patients and then be denied payment from insurance companies based on a multitude of reasons,” Fair said. “I realized that many health care professionals weren’t being paid sufficiently for the procedures they offered and so they increased the cost to those patients paying directly in order to make up for lost revenue.”
FairCareMD is designed to act as a “do it yourself” health care reform, Fair said.
The website connects consumers directly with their health care providers and allows a provider to define his or her own prices for specific procedures.
“Government probably won’t ever effectively be able to reform the health care system because there are too many special interest groups involved in the process,” Fair said. “FairCareMD allows a consumer to talk directly to a doctor and see what it is he or she is going to get for their money.”
The website allows a health care provider to list three prices in the system, Fair said. Health care providers can list a fair price, a low acceptable fee limit and a rejection price, he said.
“Consumers can either accept the fair price offered by the provider or they can try to negotiate a new price,” Fair said. “Everything is based off of procedures being priced fairly, so if the consumer bids too low his or her offer will be rejected.”
Within the profiles, FairCareMD allows consumers to consult the online version of the Health Care Blue Book which lists average prices for medical procedures based on zip code.
The online marketplace provides an atmosphere for patients and providers to bargain back and forth, and also allows them to communicate about flexibility on appointment times, Fair said.
The fair price is the only price viewable by a consumer on the website. The acceptable low price and the rejection prices are not viewable to protect the provider from being subject to regulatory changes with insurance carriers, Fair said.
“The system is a win-win for every proponent involved in the health care process,” Fair said. “The provider can offer a procedure at a fair price and if the patient is uninsured they are happy to pay a price they shopped for. Insurance companies will benefit because patients won’t be going above their deductibles to receive care. The provider gets paid directly and the employers premium won’t go up.”
FairCareMD currently has 187 specialty providers in its system, Fair said. The network is comprised of physicians, wellness coaches, dieticians, nutritionists, specialty providers, surgeons, psychoanalytic providers and the like. Fair said he is currently in discussion with one of the hospital systems in Manhattan that wants all of its physicians to enroll in the FairCareMD marketplace.
Fair is working with Jerry Theis, president and chief executive officer of Theis & Associates LLC in Greendale and creator of the My Crisis Records capsule, to launch FairCareMD in the Milwaukee area.
“Alex and I felt strongly about the fact that FairCareMD would be great for the Milwaukee community,” said Theis, executive director business development at FairCareMD. “Consumers are ready for this.”
Theis is in the process of recruiting medical providers to sign up for the FairCareMD service, he said.
Traditionally, it costs $30 a month for a provider to develop a profile on the FairCareMD website, he said.
Theis is offering interested providers a discounted trial membership. Right now, providers can pay $30 for the first 90 days of the service, Theis said.
Fair and Theis expect to have more than 500 specialists signed up for the site within six months, Theis is in discussion with several of the large health care facilities in the area as well as several independent providers of care, he said.
“This service is a win-win for everybody,” Theis said. “We found a new model that we hope is going to benefit both the providers and the consumer as well as helping employer groups who latch on to this maintain costs and even helping the insurance companies in the process.”
