Four major problems plague healthcare today:
1) Lack of Access to Care
2) High Costs of Care
3) Too many intermediaries
4) Low Quality Care
HealthSapiens intends to reverse these patterns with a simple switch of incentive structures using blockchain technology.
Solution 1: Improved Access to Care
In developing countries, mobile phones and internet data are more ubiquitous than water. Even the most disadvantaged of individuals make phone and internet access among the highest of priorities. The internet is turning into the lifeline of humans across the globe. That’s because more human needs are being provided by internet-based services every day; social connection, information, work, commerce, entertainment to name just a few.
HealthSapiens intends to add healthcare to that list. We at HealthSapiens know that the best way to reach someone is through the internet, and through their smartphone. By having an app available at users’ fingertips, the attention from a care provider can always be just seconds away.
By lowering the obstacles in place to receiving care, access to care can become more ubiquitous. People no longer have to weigh the costs-benefits of scheduling a doctor’s appointment weeks in advance.
“Do I really need to see a Doctor?”
“What if my symptoms go away by then? There’s a $50 cancellation fee…”
“What if my symptoms get worse? This CAN’T wait”
“I just have a few simple questions, do I really need an appointment for that?”
Patients ask themselves these questions all the time, and the answers to these questions are often never answered, simply because there is no system in place to answer them. HeathSapiens wants to eliminate the weighing of costs/benefits of scheduling an appointment, by providing an instant-access service altnernative.
“Do I really need to see a Doctor?”
– Why not just ask and see? There’s a doctor waiting for you in the HealthSapiens App!
“What if my symptoms go away by then? There’s a $50 cancellation fee…”
– You can see a doctor about the symptoms your having right now! Get the guidance you need immediately.
“What if my symptoms get worse? This CAN’T wait”
– Talk to a doctor immediately, and get the information you need quickly. This can prevent worsening symptoms from just a quick chat.
“I just have a few simple questions, do I really need an appointment for that?”
– No, you don’t need an appointment for that, just connect with a doctor right now, and get your questions answered!
Solution 2: Lower Costs of Care / Price Transparency
When doctors and patients are directly connected to eachother, much ofthe bloat from the healthcare industry is eliminated. The automated EMR service provided by HealthSapiens eliminates paper-pushers and approval-wait times. Every job that adds red-tape to the healthcare world incurs costs (because salaries need to be paid). By reducing the number of parties to two, doctor and patient, the costs of care are reduced to their absolute minimum. Additionally, price discovery is now able to happen, due to the open market between the buyers and sellers of care; one of the missing components from the current healthcare system.
One of the biggest issues that plagues the healthcare industry is that consumers often are forced to agree to pay for their healthcare without knowing what that cost actually is. Patients will learn about the cost of the services they have received when they are finally passed a bill, and no sooner.
The HealthSapiens platform makes the costs of care as transparant as the costs of your Uber trip, or your Airbnb stay. The price is presented to you, and you can either decline or accept that cost. What you pay is sent directly to the care provider, with no intermediaries or third parties to take a percentage cut of the payment.
Solution 3: Eliminating Intermediaries
As alluded to above, the removal of intermediaries in the care process reduces systemic costs and also streamlines efficiency. No longer will patients have to wait for their doctor’s office to fax over a prescription, and then have that prescription filled in anywhere from 24 hours to 7 days. The simple fact that the current healthcare system still relies on faxing to process patient information is simply absurd. The HealthSapiens EMR system eliminates the need for different healthcare services to have to communicate between each other about the patient’s medical records, and can instead communicate with the decentralized EMR platform that has the patients records.
While the goals of third party intermediaries are claimed to be patient safety, the truth really is that each intermediary represents a for-profit business that often depends on incurring costs upon patients to support their business model. The approval for treatments and prescriptions is often in place to prevent insurance fraud, and make sure that those that truly need treatment will receive it — after waiting enough time. Ultimately, the patient is the one that pays for the fraudulent activities of others, in time and money, due to the lack of trust between intermediaries. Additionally, the patient also pays for the income and profits of each intermediary.
By eliminating the relevant parties to two, and by using a trustless blockchain platform, all extra costs of time and money are eliminated. Patient care is streamlined, and inexpensive. Thanks to the EMR, third parties are only limited by their own ability to access patient information from the EMR platform; no longer does each healthcare service have to depend on the actions of others to complete their services to the patient.
Solution 4: A platform for building higher-quality care.
The three prior solutions: Immediate access, lower costs, and no intermediaries, are all parts of a greater system. The best thing about the HealthSapiens system is that the resulting platform itself is greater than sum of the parts.
- Higher quality care is achieved through immediate care access. When the barrier to care is just a smartphone with an internet connection, those that need care can receive it immediately. This allows for patients to be much more proactive with their health. Many medical conditions such as type II diabetes, cancers, heart disease, and obesity can be mitigated or wholly prevented by early attention to the symptoms and a proactive approach. A quick weekly, or even daily, check-in with a doctor can allow those who need the extra help to stay on track with their health needs. Instead of wondering, but never asking, about “is this symptom something to be concerned about”, you are allowed a more proactive attitude to your health issues via the HealthSapiens platform.
- Higher quality care is achieved through eliminating intermediaries.Time is often of the essence when it comes to health issues, and when each intermediary slows down the care process, it incurs costs of health upon the patient. When each intermediary is their own for-profit business, rather than for-health business, the patient’s health is made secondary to the health of the business. There is simply no way to align the incentives of each 3rd party in the current healthcare system. Instead, on the HealthSapiens platform, doctors are incentivized to quickly and efficiently improve their patients’ health. Doctors who provide high quality care that actually creates results have time that is worth more, thanks to the built-in ratings platform in HealthSapiens. Patients who want to get healthier, sooner, are able to search for doctors that have had previous patients who have gotten healthier, sooner. These doctors are able to charge more for their time, simply due to the extra demand for their services, based on their successful past performances. On the HealthSapiens platform, incentives are actually aligned!
- Higher quality care is achieved through lowered costs and price transparency. On the HealthSapiens platform, patients are able to predict and plan for their healthcare costs. The price of a providers service is presented in the same way every other product is presented: before you accept it. This is unfortunately not true for the legacy healthcare industry. Also, since all for-profit intermediaries are removed, this is reflected in the price of care provided. In tandem with instantly available access to care, low-cost access to care further incentivizes patients to be more proactive with their health. Patients who take care of their health issues the moment they arrive no longer have to pay for further costs for ignoring them. The lowered cost-barrier also allows for a wider global population to use the HealthSapiens platform, and makes care more accessible to everyone. If everyone with internet access is able to be more proactive about their personal health issues, global heathcare costs can be reduced significantly.
Tokens and the Blockchain: The Key Feature
At HealthSapiens, we know this business model works to an extent; we’ve seen it in practice with HealthSapiens.com. Our patients and doctors love the direct connection and ease-of-access provided by the platform. Yet, the service is still limited. Here are a number of characteristics that make the blockchain and important feature for the DOC token.
Borderless: Being in a US Dollar market limits our service to the US. Having the DOC token turns this same business model into a borderless, government agnostic service; one of the greatest limiting factors in providing care to hard-to-reach populations. With the DOC token, an entire healthcare ecosystem can operate using the same currency as it’s foundation.
Micro-transactable: Regardless of the geographic area, and the value of the native currency, DOC tokens are able to be used to purchase the needed amounts of care from the platform providers. Since HealthSapiens is a worldwide platform, doctors and patients can be matched according to their price ranges and service capabilities. Since the DOC token will be divisible to 18 decimal places, the value transfer from patient to provider can be as small as it needs to be to adjust for the value of the service provided. 5 minutes of care in Zimbabwe? No problem. This isn’t possible with Visa or Mastercard, where high-volume transactions aren’t feasible under 1–2$’s
Patient-to-Provider Payments: In the traditional system, doctors aren’t paid by treating patients. They are paid by insurance companies after a lengthy review and approval (or denial) process. Payment can come weeks or even months after treatment. Combined the potential for payment denial, doctors are often faced with income inconsistency or insecurity. With HealthSapiens, and the DOC token, payment is assured, and immediate. Doctors can now know exactly the value they expect the receive, and they receive it immediately after their service is provided. This will add to the incentive to doctors to use the HealthSapiens platform to supplement their existing income with immediately accessible value from their patients.
For more information, visit us at https://healthsapiens.io/.
