Medical bills. The very words can send a shiver down your spine if you’ve ever had to deal with healthcare beyond your routine physical. They can be steep and, sometimes without you even noticing, inaccurate. And good luck having any errors corrected. Many healthcare providers and insurance companies simply don’t give a care.
That’s why five students at Harvard Business School have banded together to launch a startup that will help people negotiate their medical bills. The venture - called BillCrew - connects patients with medical bill advocates (yes, those exist) to dissect their medical bills, pinpoint anything amiss and fight with providers or insurers on the patients’ behalf.
Tanya Rosbash, one of BillCrew’s co-founders, explained that she and her teammates have all experienced frustrating ordeals surrounding large and often unfair medical bills. She has personally had medical bills in the past 3 or 4 years that she’s tried to negotiate with providers, but her efforts ended up being unsuccessful.
"It’s a huge opportunity to help people save money - money that’s rightfully theirs.”
Meanwhile, another BillCrew co-founder, Iulia Iliut, couldn’t believe her first American medical bill when she saw it. A native of Romania, Iliut had exclusively dealt with European healthcare systems in the past, so the whole billing process in the U.S. (especially the amount of money at hand) was shocking.
“As we started commiserating over it, we realized it was something we should explore,” Rosbash explained. “When people have a problem with their taxes, they can call up their accountants to have them look everything over and try to resolve any problems...Why doesn’t that exist in the healthcare space?”
There are medical bill advocates out there, but not many patients are aware of them or know how to contact them. Rosbash said given that there is more than $450 billion being paid out of pocket for healthcare in the U.S. - and that 80 percent of American medical bills have errors - that’s a massive issue.
So what first started as a project for HBS turned into a full-out startup, with a small amount of initial funding coming from the business school. BillCrew launched earlier this month and has already had two patients connect with medical bill advocates through its platform. The service is structured to be no-risk to patients, being free of charge if no changes are made to their medical bills. And if a medical bill advocate does win the negotiations with providers or insurers on a patient’s behalf, 30 percent of the savings (which Rosbash said is standard) will be deducted with 5 percent going to BillCrew and the other 25 percent going to the medical advocate.
But, overall, it will still pay off for patients. “It’s a huge opportunity to help people save money - money that’s rightfully theirs,” Rosbash said.
Image via BillCrew.
