Transparent Healthcare: The Costco for Health Insurance

After seeing obstacles that the uninsured face, Betty Heiman created a company that hopes to make health care costs truly clear and affordable for everyone.

Betty Heiman was the owner of a radiology practice in Yonkers when she got a strange call from an orthopedist she knew. He was trying to arrange an MRI for his mother, who was uninsured. “How much does an MRI cost?” he asked her. “I have no idea.”

Heiman, 49, was struck by two facts at once: First, that the orthopedist had no sense of what the actual price tag was on a service he wrote prescriptions for daily; and second, that there was in fact no true price. What an MRI cost depended on what your insurance provider or Medicare was willing to pay. And for those without insurance, that lack of knowledge could easily torpedo someone’s entire financial life. “The uninsured person really faces three obstacles,” says Heiman. “First, they have no idea what the things cost. Second, they have no safety net. And third, they have no ability to bargain.”

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At , BTL we know it’s about asking the right questions (e.g. “what is the price and how do I get a better deal”)…this holds true across industries!