As mentioned in Medical Tourism Magazine, “The Affordable Care Act has enabled some Americans to purchase health insurance for the first time, but providing fair-priced employee benefits remains a challenging prospect for U.S. employers,” said Jonathan Edelheit, CEO of the Medical Tourism Association®. “Even though the increased cost for insurance has been shifted on the shoulders of working Americans, U.S. employers are beginning to identify self-funding strategies – like medical tourism — that reconcile healthcare offerings with financial goals of the business – attracting and retaining healthy employees while maintaining the bottom line.”
In a nutshell, healthcare is getting so expensive coupled with rising out-of-pocket deductibles, that consumers and employers are looking for alternatives. Employers are paying, or at least considering paying for travel to other destinations for less expensive care. That care could be in another country or it could be through collaborations domestically, as with the Cleveland Clinic.
Ultimately, if the consumer is paying out-of-pocket, they’ll want to know the cost before driving or flying to see their doctor here at home or abroad. That’s where BuildMyBod’s Price Transparency Platform comes in. BuildMyBod is a database of procedure costs provided by the doctor’s themselves. Once the doctor uploads their cost information, the patient can visit the website or Facebook page (or app!) where the doctor’s procedures are listed. The patient adds procedures of interest to their virtual ‘wishlist’ and after the prospective patient submits their name, email address and phone number, they’re immediately presented with the breakdown of costs and the doctor receives the patient’s contact info for follow up.
This platform works great for individual doctors, including plastic surgeons, dermatologists and concierge primary care doctors, as well as entire clinics or medical tourism facilities.
Knowing the cost before seeing your doctor used to simply be a dream. Now that dream has become a reality.
