Medical bill challenge launched by Sylvia Burwell, puts cash prize behind ending confusion
"A Bill You Can Understand" challenge calls on healthcare organizations, designers, developers, digital tech companies to come up with ideas.
Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell on Monday formally challenged the healthcare industry to finally fix issues with confusing medical bills, and the U.S. government is putting a cash prize behind the effort.
Dubbed "A Bill You Can Understand" challenge, it calls on healthcare organizations, designers, developers, digital tech companies and other innovators to design a medical bill that's easier for patients to understand and to improve the overall medical billing process.
Submissions will be accepted until August 10. Winners will be announced in September 2016 and will receive $5,000 each.
Medical billing is confusing, since patients often receive bills from multiple hospitals, doctors, labs or specialists for the same episode of care. Because of this, patients complain that it's difficult to determine the bottom line of what they owe, what their insurance plan covers, and whether the bills are correct or complete.
The challenge will award two $5,000 prizes: 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.
Winning designs will be featured at the Health 2.0 Annual Fall Conference in September and on the challenge website.
Submissions will be judged based on understandability, creativity and how well they address the challenges outlined by patients, providers and payers, among other criteria.
Cambia Health Solutions, Geisinger Health System, INTEGRIS Health, Cleveland's MetroHealth System, Providence Health & Services, and University of Utah Health Care have all volunteered to test or implement winning solutions.
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Experts from these organizations will also serve alongside patients and other stakeholders on an advisory panel to the challenge's federal judges.
"This challenge is part of HHS's larger effort to put patients at the center of their own health care," said Burwell, who announced the challenge during the annual Health Datapalooza conference in Washington D.C. "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."
Twitter: @SusanJMorse
