Change:Healthcare partners with National MS society

Newly launched company looks to help patients manage bills and navigate the healthcare world, while it collects data that may demystify tracking of doc charges and insurer payments

Email | Print By Walker Duncan

A new company on the Nashville healthcare scene is looking at the problem of payment from the patient’s side of the coin. While revenue cycle management companies continue to spring up helping hospitals manage their receivables, Change:Healthcare was created to help patients manage their bills and co-pays.

After spending the last year in product development, the company is ready to get started, announcing today that it has partnered with the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and is launching a pilot version of its MedBillManager tool.

The product is aimed at those with chronic conditions and helping them manage their medical bills online in much the same way they’d manage their personal finances with a product like Quicken. The idea, according to the company, is to make a complicated and often overwhelming process more user-friendly and organized.

And as a side benefit, because the process is online, eventually it will compile enough data that the company will be able to provide patients with date to compare their medical expenses anonymously with those of individuals in their area receiving care. That same data could provide hard information for employers and others to see what a given healthcare provider really charges for a procedure, and what a given payor really pays. At present, those real costs are usually hard to determine in advance.

The company also runs a free website called FindYourDoc.com, which compiles data on nearly 700 thousand doctors and more than 6,000 hospitals. Among the data will be information such as charges and reimbursement, along with education and background information on doctors.

The MedBillManager service, however, runs on a subscription basis. Change:Healthcare plans to partner with other non-profit organizations like the MS Society as an offering to the membership of such groups.

The company was founded in 2006 by health care IT veterans Christopher Parks and Robert Hendrick.