- 656
Bit of a tangent topic here at best, but HHS Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell just announced a contest promising a cash prize of $5,000 to the person or organization that designs a simpler medical bill.
The “A Bill You Can Understand” contest was announced Monday as a response to the common complaint that today’s medical bills are too difficult for consumers to understand.
Burwell says: “This challenge is part of HHS’ larger effort to put patients at the center of their own health care. With today’s announcement, we are creating progress toward a medical bill that people can actually understand and a billing process that makes sense – progress that includes creating a forum that brings everyone to the table: patients, doctors, hospitals, insurance companies and innovators.”
The challenge will issue two awards: one for the innovator that designs the bill that is easiest to understand and a second for the innovator that designs the best transformational approach to improve the medical billing system, focusing on what the patient sees and does throughout the process. Submissions will be judged based on understandability, creativity and how well they address the challenges outlined by patients, providers and payers, among other criteria explained on the challenge website. The challenge will accept submissions until August 10, 2016. Challenge winners will be announced in September 2016 and will receive cash prizes of $5,000 each.
OK, I appreciate the concept, but if they really wanted qualified people who know what they’re doing to get serious about this, wouldn’t they have made it a $50,000 prize instead of $5,000?
HHS announces challenge to redesign the medical bill for patients | HHS.gov
The “A Bill You Can Understand” contest was announced Monday as a response to the common complaint that today’s medical bills are too difficult for consumers to understand.
Burwell says: “This challenge is part of HHS’ larger effort to put patients at the center of their own health care. With today’s announcement, we are creating progress toward a medical bill that people can actually understand and a billing process that makes sense – progress that includes creating a forum that brings everyone to the table: patients, doctors, hospitals, insurance companies and innovators.”
The challenge will issue two awards: one for the innovator that designs the bill that is easiest to understand and a second for the innovator that designs the best transformational approach to improve the medical billing system, focusing on what the patient sees and does throughout the process. Submissions will be judged based on understandability, creativity and how well they address the challenges outlined by patients, providers and payers, among other criteria explained on the challenge website. The challenge will accept submissions until August 10, 2016. Challenge winners will be announced in September 2016 and will receive cash prizes of $5,000 each.
OK, I appreciate the concept, but if they really wanted qualified people who know what they’re doing to get serious about this, wouldn’t they have made it a $50,000 prize instead of $5,000?
HHS announces challenge to redesign the medical bill for patients | HHS.gov
