Article - July 29, 2008 - Washington Post

Patients Turn to Advocates to Navigate Health-Care System
Millions Join Programs to Find Doctors, Resolve Disputes

By Mike Stobbe

After three surgeries, Judy Sherer still had chronic pain in her left shoulder. She'd lost faith in her doctors and in despair tried a new health benefit offered by her employer.

The service, Health Advocate, is a call-in center that helps customers find the right doctor, haggle over insurance coverage and manage other medical system headaches.

An advocate helped Sherer find a new surgeon, one who found metal shavings left in her shoulder by a previous doctor. The advocate also negotiated the charge for her physical therapy down to $40 per visit from the $200 she was quoted initially.

"It saved me a ton of money," said Sherer, 63, of Norcross, Ga. "I'm very, very pleased."

Health Advocate is one of a growing number of companies offering advocacy services to medical consumers. Revolution Health, a Web-based medical consumer services company, has been considering getting into the same business.

"It's a really interesting industry that's just taking off," said Carol Fischer, a spokeswoman for Health Advocate, a 12 million-member organization.

Currently, health advocacy business generates about $50 million to $75 million in annual revenue but has only about a dozen companies of any significant size, said Richard Rakowski of Intersection LLC, a Connecticut-based investment and development firm that has researched the field.

But those numbers have grown from a few years ago, and it may be on track to become a $1 billion industry based on the demand for the service, said Rakowski, the firm's principal.

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