Steve Case’s Revolution Health has announced its first investments in the health care arena. They include a company that finds doctors and provides scheduling services; a health information firm; search firm targeting health issues; and two companies focused on insurance.
Case’s new company was announced three months ago to great fanfare, focusing on several areas:
–provide consumers with access to data on physician and hospital cost and quality
–lower health insurance costs by streamlining the purchasing process
–enable consumers to rapidly access their personal health care data at convenient locations
These initial investments appear to be somewhat in line with those priorities, although there are already many companies providing similar or identical services with significant revenue streams.
myDNA.com appears to be an advertising supported health information site, similar to others pervading the web. 1-800 Schedule is another web site that appears to be ad-supported. It does provide directories of providers, but there are no quality rankings, ratings, or profiles beyond basic info.
ExtendBenefits is an individual health insurance firm that also supports HSA administration. They claim 500,000 members and base their pitch on lower costs (claiming individual health benefit programs are 1/4 to 1/2 the cost of group programs (?)). ExtendBenefits is staffed by execs from eHealthInsurance and technology folk. There is an interesting article on their site quoting the CEO of Pitney Bowes on health insurance costs. One of the salient parts of the article follows:
“The same thinking has been applied to psychiatric and substance-abuse cases. The company set up an eight-session early-action program to make sure covered employees in these situations were seen early and often by professionals before they were released for more intensive treatment. Although this is more expensive in the short run, says Critelli, in the long term the program “saves money by getting better results from more data.”
Pitney Bowes has also found that substantially decreasing the cost of medications borne by employees results in fewer of them discontinuing their long-term treatments, which would invite more serious conditions and hospital visits. The company considers screening and diagnostic procedures a critical component of prevention strategies but found through data analysis that some diagnostic tools
Oct
6
Thanks, Joe, for the observation that Case’s newest properties are ad-supported. That’s the key piece of information. It’s my belief that such a model can’t be counted on for accuracy in the long run. At some point, advertizers will apply financial pressure to skew any information to favor them, and under SEC regs that require companies by law to address fiduciary responsibilities to shareholders above all else, Case’s company will have to knuckle under.
What I’m hoping for is an online company built on the Consumer Reports model: nonprofit, taking no advertizing, and using true scientific method to identify winners and losers among physicians and hospitals. The folks at Consumer Reports, God love’em, make some noble attempts at covering healthcare, but we really need a consumer advocacy company that does it 24/7/365, instead of trying to work it in among testing vacuum cleaners and deck stains.