The OAASC (Ohio Association of Ambulatory Surgery Centers) has invited the BuildMyBod Health Founder and CEO, Dr. Jonathan Kaplan, to present at their annual multi-disciplinary conference on Thursday September 20th at 2:30pm.
The OAASC
The mission of the Ohio Association of Ambulatory Surgery Centers is to:
- Enhance the quality of care in Ohio ambulatory surgery centers.
- Provide legislative and regulatory representation for ambulatory surgery centers to advocate their interests and those of their patients.
- Promote public awareness of ambulatory surgery centers. Act as spokesperson and representative to present the views of ambulatory surgery centers in appropriate forums.
- Encourage high standards of professional conduct by organizations providing ambulatory surgical care.
- Provide opportunities for members to enhance their ambulatory surgical care practices and methods.
- Support members in their expanding roles and responsibilities in meeting community health needs.
- Promote effectiveness and efficiency through professional development, exchange of ideas, and leadership.
- Conduct and promote education, research and collection of other information relating to the ambulatory surgical field.
Dr. Kaplan’s talk will be about ambulatory surgery centers (ASC’s) using price transparency to generate leads for medically necessary services. This requires a little background on what BuildMyBod does.
What BuildMyBod does
When consumers check pricing through the BuildMyBod platform, they have to enter their contact info to get instant automated pricing information that’s housed in the BuildMyBod database (previously provided by the healthcare provider). In the process, the healthcare facility receives the consumer’s contact info – a lead for follow up. In other words, Price Transparency + Lead Generation = BuildMyBod.
While BuildMyBod was originally a way for consumers to check pricing on cosmetic services that are typically paid out of pocket because they’re not covered by insurance, that mission has changed.
It’s not about whether the procedure is cosmetic or not. It’s about whether consumers are paying out of pocket or not. With the passage of the Affordable Care Act, healthcare costs have gone up and more consumers resort to high deductible health plans to keep their monthly premiums lower.
But when monthly premiums are lower, deductibles are higher. So now, consumers are paying out of pocket for medically necessary procedures before the deductible is met. In that sense, there’s no difference between paying out of pocket because a procedure is cosmetic or medically necessary – the consumer is paying out of pocket either way!
Consumers are doing their research
For that reason, consumers are now researching their options and even going outside of their network. They realize that more affordable care is possible when paying out of pocket. They figure if they’re going to pay out of pocket either way (because they have a high deductible), they might as well pay the least and still maintain quality.
One of the OAASC’s member facilities, the Ohio Surgery Center, understands this. That’s why they now have a BuildMyBod Price Estimator on their website that allows the consumer to check their out-of-pocket pricing on services provided by the Ohio Surgery Center, and in return, the Ohio Surgery Center gets the consumer’s contact info for follow up. Instant patient navigator at your service! Now, that’s great customer service!
If you’re a healthcare facility and want to join the Ohio Surgery Center in generating leads through price transparency, click here to request an account.
Click here for the original blog post written by Dr. Kaplan for BuildMyBod.
