Open Sourcing Healthcare's Local Laws: A Path to a New Healthcare Economy
Dave Chase, Health Rosetta-discovering archaeologist
Healthcare Transformation Author & Speaker | Chief Archaeologist at Health Rosetta
As many of you know, we've been on a mission to transform healthcare through transparency and open sourcing. I'm excited to share a groundbreaking initiative that aligns perfectly with this vision and takes a significant step towards building a new healthcare economy. On Thursday at RosettaFest, those in-person or virtual will get the full scoop. Here's a preview of what's coming in our biggest announcement since we founded Health Rosetta .
Mark Cuban is bringing some much needed visibility to abusive profiteering that has become the norm in healthcare. Modern Healthcare reported on his recent interview on The Daily Show.
Cuban and Stewart discussed how the issue of healthcare price transparency goes beyond drug costs, adding that cost differences between hospitals including for emergency care, such as treating heart attacks, is an issue for patients.
"We're just getting it approved today — we're going to publish all contracts," Cuban told Stewart. "For my companies, we're saying: If you want to do business with us ... we're going to publish them and put them online for anybody to see all of our pricing."
We couldn't be more aligned with Mark and are open sourcing both know-how and data technology.
The Problem: Contractual Capture in Healthcare
To understand the U.S. healthcare system, think of it as a metaphorical nation - let's call it "Healthcareistan." In this nation, health plan legal documents serve as de facto "local laws." These documents govern how care is delivered and paid for, much like local laws impact our daily lives.
The problem? These "laws" are often created to enrich a small group of extremely powerful individuals/orgs rather than benefit the people they serve. This "contractual capture" is at the heart of America's healthcare dysfunction, leading to trillions of dollars in waste and directly leads to an epidemic of medical debt affecting over 100 million Americans directly leading to premature deaths (estimated to be the fourth leading cause of death after cancer, heart disease, and preventable medical mistakes).
The Solution: Democratizing Healthcare's Legal Documents
To address this, we're taking a bold step: open sourcing several years of intellectual property developed by Health Rosetta that fulfill the promise in the sub-title to my best-selling book that launched the movement (How to deliver world class healthcare to your employees at half the cost). This includes a comprehensive Field Guide for TPA Procurement, Contracting, Data Use, & Vendor Management and much more. [Get notified by going to www.healthrosetta.org/opensource]
Our goal? To establish new contractual standards and norms that extend well beyond Health Rosetta to the entire industry. It's much bigger than Health Rosetta (we'll be announcing a new org with independence from Health Rosetta).
Why This Matters
1. Transparency is the cure for healthcare's ills: By making these documents public, we're shining a light on the hidden mechanisms that drive up healthcare costs.
2. Empowering the healthcare consumer: This initiative gives employers, benefits advisors, and individuals the tools to understand and negotiate better healthcare contracts.
3. Aligning with industry leaders: We're not alone in this fight. Mark Cuban recently announced, "We're going to publish all contracts." Our initiative amplifies this movement towards radical transparency.
4. Building a new healthcare economy: By democratizing these "local laws," we're laying the groundwork for a healthcare system that truly serves its people.
Beyond Price Transparency: A Holistic Approach
It's crucial to understand that transparency in healthcare goes far beyond just price transparency as I've been writing about for over eight years. See Redefining Transparency: Fair Trade for Healthcare for my 2016 piece on it a year before Health Rosetta was launched.
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As I've discussed in my previous writings, a truly transparent and ethical healthcare system should encompass:
1. Visible prices: Readily available without special subscriptions, including bundled prices for conditions.
2. Safety data: Information on safety culture and outcomes, which are critical predictors of quality care.
3. Staff treatment: Transparency on how healthcare providers treat their staff, recognizing the direct impact on patient care.
4. Ethics-based organization: Focus on patient-reported outcomes and ethical business practices.
5. Data liquidity: Ensuring patients and care teams have complete access to health information.
6. Fair treatment of all parties: Similar to Fair Trade practices, ensuring all stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem are treated fairly.
This holistic approach to transparency is what we're advocating for with our open-sourcing initiative. It's not just about knowing the price of a procedure, but about understanding the full context of care delivery, from staff well-being to patient outcomes.
What's Included
Our Field Guide covers crucial areas such as:
Each of these areas is approached with the understanding that true transparency encompasses all aspects of healthcare delivery and administration. Before releasing these resources broadly, these approaches were directly battle-tested with over 400 employers and indirectly with over 20,000 employers in the Health Rosetta ecosystem.
The Path Forward
This is just the beginning. By open sourcing these resources, we're inviting the entire industry to collaborate, iterate, and improve upon them. Together, we can create a healthcare system that's transparent, efficient, and truly serves the needs of all Americans.
As I've often said, it's better to own 1% of a watermelon than 100% of a grape. By sharing our "crown jewels," we're not diminishing our impact - we're amplifying it.
Join us in this movement. Let's rewrite the "local laws" of healthcare and build a new healthcare economy that works for everyone, founded on comprehensive transparency, value and ethical practices.
#HealthcareTransparency #OpenSource #HealthcareReform
ICHRA Pioneer aka The Wizard of ICHRA
3moWell done Dave Chase, Health Rosetta-discovering archaeologist . Think about that part of the contract that allows the insurance carrier to re-underwrite if there is a 10% of more shift in enrollment. With many employers, carving #ichra out, we are seeing this #contractual measure from carriers being applied. While the #employer and #consultant are trying to do what is right by #fiduciary rules. Go get em #HealthRosetta!
The argument for profit based privately run healthcare is that market based systems tend to be more efficient than government run systems. Efficient markets cannot exist absent transparency on cost and quality. That's why we have the least efficient healthcare system on the planet in terms of aggregate outcomes versus total cost (and % of GDP). Lack of transparency lies at the heart of it and that's the problem #HealthRosetta is trying to fix. Worthy goal.
Founder, Advisor, Investor, Board Member, & Operator | Strategy, Growth & Operations Executive | Healthcare IT, Medical Devices, Healthcare Services, SaaS, TaaS, & AI
3moDave Chase, Health Rosetta-discovering archaeologist - I love this post and much of what I've read about you over the years - thanks for all you've done to date for healthcare and the average patient! I would love to catch up and discuss my foundation, Patients First, as we are just launching and have some big plans for democratizing healthcare IT. Can you find some time for a quick introduction?
Senior Consultant | Physician, ABOS, MBA
3moPatient aren’t aware of sentinel events when they occur. I just witnessed one in a high level stroke center. No malpractice; outcomes are bad as a normal sometimes
Senior Consultant | Physician, ABOS, MBA
3moAs a provider , I could share many stories about various treatment recommendations which weren’t wrong but were not the best for a patient. When you are the patient and your doc says you have a malignant mass and it needs to come out most patients are Re so scared, they say sure doc. I saved one colleague from a needless Whipple(partia pancreatectomy) when a surgeon based his recommendation onone published paper. It is a Sure cure if cancer wasnt there! 6 month ercp was clean. No surgical cost or complication