

Opportunities for startups in health insurance industry - raheemm
http://itleaderstoday.com/opportunities-for-startups-in-the-health-insurance-industry-with-tahasin-alam/

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petesalty
I was in a start-up in the health insurance industry (we just got acquired by
a much larger company). While I agree there are some opportunities, mostly in
the areas of information, what most people don't realize is that health
insurance is highly regulated and hence a very expensive business to be in.
It's not like you can just throw up some web site and start selling insurance.
It's much more complicated than that.

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samd
I think most people realize that the medical industry is highly regulated and
that's why they overlook the opportunities there.

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samd
There are opportunities for startups all over the place that are mostly
ignored because your average 20-something hacker/founder has no idea these
problems exist.

Also, transcripts would be nice.

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raheemm
Thanks. I'll start putting up transcripts in the next few weeks.

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aresant
Great breakdown and appreciate that you're responding here - would also
request HTML5 format video for iphone / ipad viewing for future episodes :)

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raheemm
Wow! That's a great suggestion - I'm going to look into it!

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chasingsparks
I was unaware that the health reform that passed created a more powerful
consumer market. Lack of preexisting conditions banning means you can get
individual insurance, but most people would opt to get it through an employer
for cost reasons -- no?

The measure to create a consumer market -- shifting tax benefits to
individuals not corporations -- never was introduced.

(I could be wrong. After 50,000 iterations, I don't think anyone knows what
passed.)

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raheemm
The current uninsured group are mostly low-wage earners (McDonald's workers),
self-employed, small businesses or unemployed. Except for the low-wage
workers, the rest of the consumers will likely be buying insurance directly
from the health insurance companies.

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raheemm
Last week there was a post on HN about being addicted to information. I am one
of those people and this project (IT Leaders Today) is an attempt to make a
living on my information addiction. I would appreciate the community's
comments on making it better. My nod to Andrew Warner of Mixergy, who is the
inspiration behind this project.

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va_coder
I think few of the problems in the health insurance industry are technical

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DenisM
Well, how many problems do you need?

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mikecuesta
There's certainly a lot of opportunity, specifically in enabling the
physicians office with more powerful and usable software. Remember, most
healthcare in the US still happens within the walls of a small medical
practices.

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raheemm
One area that doctors' offices are hurting is in billing to the insurance
companies. Its a whole bunch of paperwork specific to each insurance
companies. If a site is created that allows the doctor's office to
electronically enter each claim and then that claim is automatically submitted
to the insurance company, there would be quite a bit of efficiency at the
doctor's office.

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mikecuesta
raheemm, this is precisely where our company fits in: www.carecloud.com

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raheemm
Mike, I just checked your site! Would you be interested in sharing carecloud's
story? Please ping me at raheemm1 at yahoo.

