Crowd-Sourced Surgeon Database
I think I have a solution and I am considering doing it – more than I usually consider doing something.
Hundreds provided their surgery bills to Four Corners (I just watched the episode). Basically the out-of-pocket expenses are often substantial, even for people who have been paying for health insurance for a long time. It seems that some surgeons over-charge and even add illegal charges to the bill, taking advantage of people seeking a quick resolution and who lack information about their options.
What if we had a culture of sending your medical bills to a public database, that aggregates the data, and anonymises it (or not) according to the submitters wishes. The more people who allow their names to be attached would add the the authenticity…
You could see the average cost of each procedure per surgeon, and the average out-of-pocket per insurer. Appropriate disclaimers would be in place, regarding how averages work, that every surgery is different, and locations can be a big factor (for example capital cities have higher costs). We could even share average wait times of public and private services.
I’m 99% sure this is totally legal, unless the surgeons get you to sign something to the contrary – in which case we could keep a register of them as well.
The publicity would be easy. The tech side would be easy. We would need volunteers to enter the data.
It would either continue long-term or be replaced by an official system of more transparency.
And we could add in side-effects, which are substantially different in scope to what people are informed of pre-surgery. It would of course be only shared at procedure level, not surgeon level.
I found something similar in the USA, using data provided by the health insurers. It is good for getting a very general idea of costs but not much else. I think a truly independent site would offer deeper data…
https://www.fairhealthconsumer.org/
Ultimately we cannot trust the government, insurance companies, or every surgeon to tell us the truth about costs and expected outcomes – as they all have reasons to avoid it. People power can change that.
Oh, and even if it proved illegal or attracted lawsuits, I’m sure it would be supported by some pro bono lawyers and the publicity would promote public and government debate.
This would 100% not include reviews of surgeries. It is purely to get a general understanding of options.
Imagine if you could discover that 10 surgeons cost $3000-$5000, and 5 more charge $8000-$10,000. For the exact same procedure.
Imagine if you could discover that the wait times for a public procedure with zero costs was 8 weeks and private was 4 weeks.
Imagine if you could discover that a routine procedure has a 40% rate of side effects, and a 10% rate of side effects that required further surgery.
(I think we would avoid fatality rates and success rates…)