This is basically what you read in the title. There are a couple areas and thus far the service is available in the State of Washington. Take a look and visit the site and enter some zip codes and see what you come up with. It includes dental, medial, surgical procedures, chiropractors, and more.
There is a Twitter page than can be found here and a Facebook site too. I played around a bit with the cosmetic side and yes you can bid on your Botox treatment too, I saw everything from 10.00 to over 15.00 per unit listed. Patients pay cash or pay buy credit card and file their own insurance forms, if they have insurance.
A therapeutic ultra sound had started at $25.00 and went up to “call for price” and had 77 results listed. Here’s a link from a post from last year which brokered surgical procedures between the US and Canada.
The Surgical Procedure Broker - Have bum hip, will travel
Many of the items I post on the blog are for informational purposes only and I do have to say reputation and word of mouth recommendation is by all means not dead in my book either, those are sometimes the absolute best a patient can get. As bidding and pricing moves along for healthcare, I’m almost positive there will be some meshing along the way to stay in the game with pricing too, perhaps not a small amount charge, but rather larger amounts and probably more prevalent in the cosmetic and/or chiropractic areas I might guess. For pricing this may benefit the consumer but I think overall it could contribute to distancing the physician/patient relationship to a degree as it somewhat resembles purchasing a deal on an advertised product instead of health care. All doctors and patients too are not created equal. BD
If you can’t find a price, there’s also another feature where you can list the price as a patient that you are willing to pay. The service will try to locate a provider who will accept the price that the patient has presented. As the page states, almost like buying an airline ticket. I remember when a business similar to this started a few years ago for surgical procedures only, but it looks like with today’s technology, it has grown beyond just surgery.
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PriceDoc is a FREE online service that lets you search for qualified healthcare providers in your local area and compare their pricing for specific procedures. Once you have reviewed each provider’s profile and their cost for the procedure you can choose the provider that is the best fit for you.
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This looks like a great solution for high deductable insurance or elective surgery. Why not save some cash by paying directly?
ReplyDeleteThere are no Board Certified Plastic Surgeons who will participate in this scheme. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons specifically prohibits its members from engaging in this kind of activity. Bottom line...buyer beware. Do you really want your cosmetic procedures being performed by a less qualified individual? Are you going to trust your face to someone who needs to discount their services to obtain patients?
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