Today I will be talking to a very interesting guest, who is a dear friend and colleague of mine.
As a plastic surgeon practicing in the San Francisco Bay area, he is not only a gifted and passionate surgeon but moreover, he is a problem solver and entrepreneur. In today’s world where every business owner is called an “entrepreneur”, to me the true definition of an entrepreneur is someone that realized a problem, comes up with a solution, and then shares it with everyone.
Today, one of the biggest problems in our healthcare is price transparency. What do I mean by that? Have you ever gone to the doctor or hospital and actually knew what your bill is going to be prior to going there? Well, this is exactly one of the big problems in American health care. Worse even is the tremendous variations in cost. Imagine you go to a restaurant and you wouldn’t know the cost of your steak prior to ordering it. Worse even, your bill for the same steak is $200, and your friend who had the same steak for some reason only paid $40. How would you feel about that? Well in healthcare lack of price transparency is the accepted norm.
Patients often get confronted with fees after they see their doctor and often are shocked about the amount and then have to figure out how to pay their bill after the fact. Why can’t the patients have an estimate of fees prior to their visit? The answer that many doctors including myself up till now were giving their patients was: “ the doctor can’t give estimates over the phone since surgical needs are different for everyone.” Well, what if, as a patient, you could go to your doctor’s website or use an app on your phone to get estimates of procedures and services that you need or simply want by simply selecting them and putting them in your “wishlist” and then getting a quote immediately?
Well, this is exactly what my next guest, Dr. Johnathan Kaplan, a plastic surgeon from the San Francisco Bay area has created with his app called “BuildMYBod”. BuildMyBod has a price estimator where a patient can exactly do that, select procedures they want estimates on, placed them in their cart, and get a complete estimate before seeing their doctor. To me, this was such a genius idea that I didn’t hesitate to integrate the system into my practice! No more surprises for our patients, no more sticker shock! how about that?
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