Healthy Outlook Blog

Strangely enough, it all started with crowdsourcing. After reading Clay Shirky’s “Here Comes Everybody,” my mind started racing with what could be the next big industry to shift its entire business model based on one crazy idea. I was thinking of micro insurance. I thought having a million people investing small amounts to compete with the large insurance providers might shake things up.

But the more I thought about that idea, the less excited I was. There are so many laws and regulations in place that represent huge hurdles. I also realized that it wouldn’t work as well because of the way people think about healthcare. Insurance is like a gym membership. We pay our monthly fee and get access to all kinds of stuff. The more I thought about that specific notion, the more frustrated I became with the ongoing healthcare debate. Everyone was arguing about getting more people insured but not focusing on the fact that the cost of health care is inflating.

The cost of an iPod at Best Buy or Walmart is the same. Why doesn’t getting treated for anemia cost the same at two competing hospitals? I would argue that it’s because the general public is aware of the price of an iPod. Furthermore, if the cost of an iPod is more, we want to know why it costs more. Does it have more storage space? A bigger screen?

So then I wondered, how can I inform people of these price discrepancies? And how do I get those prices? I couldn’t find them. Could I go back to crowdsourcing and have people submit their own hospital bills? I tried it briefly and got nowhere. When all hope was lost, a friend introduced me to change:healthcare, a group that went through publicly available Medicare cost data and created an algorithm to estimate an appropriate price to pay on a per hospital basis. It became my Mecca.

But if the site exists and people still haven’t taken notice, what can I do? How do you reach the larger public that will one day be a patient, just not yet? How do you present these numbers in a way that is interesting and invite you back for a second look? That’s when I decided to make my game.