Topic: Bitcoin as a catalyst for Health Care (Worldwide) (Read 10308 times)

Yeah I think the payment side of healthcare will benefit before the clinical side does. Here's a well written paper on using the blockchain for claims processing. It's written by Humana one of the largest insurers in the US.  https://www.healthit.gov/sites/default/files/3-47-whitepaperblockchainforclaims_v10.pdf

Now here's some realistic thinking...

If you exclude the speculators (90% of holders), bitcoin is really only used for fraud, gambling and drugs (this is true -- lets stop pretending its not).

So yes, you could use bitcoin as a way to skirt around the PPO or HMO system where 100 people have to get paid before 1 patient can get a surgery.

However, as we've learned over the past 3 years, there has been ZERO adoption of bitcoin among lower-income populations. Want to know why? Because you have to have shit like a bank account, money, the internet and a computer in order to get bitcoin. That's a lot of 1st world shit that we take for granted as spoiled pussies.

I see it more likely being used by Rush Limbaugh- or Michael Jackson-types to get highly experimental penis enlargement surgeries and/or large quantities of sleepy-time meds.

Bitcoin won't ever be used to help poor people. Let's face it: any time a new way to make or use money is involved, the children of rich, white people swoop in, set up regulations and tip that scale also in their favor. Looking at the pictures of the people who comprise the Bitcoin Foundation says it all.

I think it is appropriate to discuss Jesus Christ in this discussion about health care.


In regards to the 'high cost' of 'health care':

Jesus Christ miraculously healed people with the Power of Almighty God!

Jesus did not charge any money to do those amazing works for people.

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Bitcoin is money, or it is 'like money'.

In regards to how to use your money, when you are confronted with a health emergency:

Jesus spoke a parable, that people have named 'The Good Samaritan Parable'


Quoted from: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+10:25-37&version=NIV

Luke 10:25-37New International Version (NIV)
The Parable of the Good Samaritan

25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’(a]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’(b]”

28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii[c] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

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Therefore, I say to you, Go And Do Likewise With Your Bitcoins(money)

Maybe Bitcoin can help pay for blackmarket doctor, i.e. if you have a shootout in the hood and get wounded, you can't go to regular hospital for treatment since they would call the cops, so you call a blackmarket doctor to treat you and you can pay with Bitcoin.

This way, Bitcoin could help the healthcare in low income hoods for people getting treatment.

well the furfillment of technology money like bitcoin its not the technology it sellf its the capacidty of ideas and bussness that comes by having less nervouse and more active community in bitcoin the inovation ideas and active bussness do a better use of technology even in medical terms

Glad to see this thread resurrected - I haven't made much progress with this idea in the past year but it has been something I think about frequently.  Utilization of a blockchain for faster payment, accurate billing, and potential storage of medical records (something to make it accessible by all, but private to the individual and that person's providers) would be large improvements.  Certainly in a place like the USA, there would have be larger changes happening to make this effective, but as others mentioned in smaller countries where there is less regulation and red tap the possibilities for integration into crypto technologies could be a huge win. 

So long as we continue pretending there is a relationship between cost and quality of healthcare, the problem will remain in tact. Employee salaries comprise the vast majority of healthcare costs -- not advancements in medicine and technology.

We really should be following the footsteps of the rest of the developed world and implement a single-payer healthcare system. Until then, we are just encouraging physicians to figure out how to work the insurance system rather than to concentrate on delivering quality healthcare.

If we did move to single-payer, I suspect a lot of physicians who are in it solely for the money will be weeded out, and perhaps our life expectancy will catch up to all the other countries we currently make fun of for being too socialist.*


*This includes ISRAEL by the way, to all my Republican conservative friends out there. Yes, that's right. Israel has a single-payer healthcare system. Deal with it.

Bitcoin is an important part of fixing healthcare.  Bitcoin is an important financial tool that has obvious inherent security and conveniences that fiat or wire transfers do not.

However... there is an absolute requirement, in my opinion, to completely eradicate all health insurance.  Healthcare is already a profit organization.  A for-profit finance organization on top of healthcare only acts to the detriment of healthcare.  Executive pay and bonuses in healthcare insurance is absolutely wrong.

Insurance is important for homes, cars, electronics, etc.. but it has no place in healthcare.  It's proven to be a failed financial model and an impediment to healthcare.

The sooner people stop talking about healthcare insurance as if it's a necessity the sooner healthcare will be solved.  And then... Bitcoin can have even more benefits to healthcare and just about anything else that requires efficient financing.   

The MAIN problem with Health Care is the prohibitive cost for most people to afford quality care.

If you could implement Bitcoin payment in the whole supply chain, from the development and sourcing of raw material to the payment by the patient, you would see a significant change in the cost.

Multiply the cost saving factor in this whole process, and you WILL see a reduction in cost.

Some doctors give discount for cash or emmediate payments... {They do not have to wait 3 to 4 weeks for medical insurance companies to pay their bills} These discounts could also be awarded to Bitcoin payments for two reasons :

1. The doctor pay less banking fees.
2. The doctor gets almost instant payment for services rendered. { If they waited 4 weeks, they would have lost interest on that money in a bank }

This will benefit both the doctor and the patient.  

Edit : Information could also be recorded in the Blockchain {Treatment history / Payment history for tax purpose} Imagine being able to keep all records of payment and treatment forever, without having to archive it yourselves.  

That is IF you not worried about privacy issues.  

 

Let's not try to make Bitcoin the next big wonder. People try to imagine BTC into too much fantasy, and in reality they become hopeless with little price drop. So I think Bitcoin should remain as just day to day alternate currency. That will provide both stability and reliability for Bitcoin.

Straight up this. I don't understand why some users have a perception fixated upon the idea that Bitcoin will somehow make the world a better place. Bitcoin is basically just the money you have in your wallet and bank account made marginally more efficient and able to avoid adjustments by government (i.e. expanding the money supply).

The only thing I could think of is potentially making it cheaper to transfer funds overseas for overseas health workers. But even then the difference would be minimal at best.

I'm a healthcare fraud analyst and as I am also very familiar with bitcoin by this point, I only see BTC being used to commit more fraud.

We (in America) shouldn't have to pay anything beyond a copay or deductible for health insurance, ala the rest of the industrialized world. Even Israel has a single-payer healthcare system. That should tell you how much we truly love screwing our own people.

Physicians, hospital administrators and big pharma are the new banker class. Just like lawyers have always been, physicians are now far more interested in helping themselves make money than helping out their clients, aka patients.

So what we we have now is a system that encourages and rewards doctors who learn how to abuse the claims reimbursement system and don't give a flying fuck about helping their patients.

I'm not saying all doctors are bad of course. But there are some greedy ones who ruin the system for the rest of us and render America the laughingstock of the developed world when it comes to healthcare.

TLDR: Money shouldn't be an issue in healthcare, but it is. We should know by now that wealthy people will do anything to attain more wealth. In the healthcare industry that often includes killing, mutilating or otherwise screwing up the lives of healthy people.

Try getting bitcoin to change the financial industry first. So far it has yet to move the needle, as global wealth discrepancy continues its march into all-time highs.

I live in a small country were small changes, have a enormous affects quickly.

Bitcoin could be used as a currency in a local healthcare rewards program. Each person would earn cryptocurrency/BTC , from their  local insurance company, for quarterly personal health trend improvements in:

           *  weight/ BMI
           *  Blood pressure
           *  Blood sugar
           *  Resting Heart rate
           *   etc..

Tracking of participants  health, could be monitored day to day by phone apps and sensors on monitoring devices.(like smart weight scales.). However result could be certified monthly or quarterly  by a local health clinic doctor/nurse.  Of course this would be a voluntary program.

Cryptocurrency reward, could be redeemed at local businesses, that are in a major industry like tourism.
This will in turn would link people's health improvements to the health of the economy and  create jobs.

If a cryptocurrency other than BTC is used, the receiving business could exchange the current for fiat with
a health Insurance company. The funds could be used from insurance marketing budgets initially. However
lower cost from health improvement would cover it, going forward.

Contrary to the peer to peep nature of the blockchain, this method is very centralized.
However If executed  correctly, it could be a win for everyone. The obvious benefits are:

             * Lower healthcare and healthcare insurance cost
             * Frequent local tourism vacations for participants
             * a secondary market for locals to exchange/sell vacation rewards to foreigners
             * An Increase in tourism Jobs
             * Large improvements in personal and community health

Thanks jdb - some good info to add to the discussion.

A blockchain wouldn't always have to be so apparent, it could be cryptographically protected like in Bitmessage; No one but the people who know the code can see the data.

The blockchain part of Bitcoin could simply be a synchronized back-end for a Hospitals network, every time a nurse admits a patient, they send a update that updates all copies of the ledger, this way wherever they go afterward a doctor can have a patients complete record with contact information from all previous doctor assesments. The ledger could be made tamper proof or encrypted so only authorized people can view that information.

A lot of different information can be put on a synchronized database, patient plans, insurance, pre-payment information and for qualified providers global coverage, synchronized so wherever you go, you can be sure you'll be taken care of properly without anyone following you around, you may even choose to pay for a procedure lay-away style, synchronized so any participating Doctor can help you and redeem the money, through blockchain escrow.

for other situations it could be partly encrypted so that contact information for your insurance provider  can be seen by non-participating Health regions, or basic health information in case of emergency, like a medical tattoo but better.

I mean what can't you do, when you have a group of institutions sharing a synchronized ledger with all relevant data?

just imagine if there was a open DNA project where you could upload your entire DNA profile for researchers to analyze? any project that wanted to move forward in Human DNA research could whenever they needed the data they can have it,  in fact any research project can make all their data sets immediately available to anyone with a synchronized ledger, as soon as someone makes a new entry, everyone within the network knows... this truly is an amazing concensus building technology. It could improve collaborative research projects, by adding hierarchies and structure to the Blockchain.

adapt this p2p model with BitTorrent and you have a downloadable synchronized database. I was even thinking it could use magnet links as well, simply by grabbing the patients hash code, all relevant research viewed by the doctors could be tagged as they view it, done automatically by ledger updating software to the same ledger or another for doctor reference.

pass a hash of the data every so often into the Bitcoin blockchain or in any other blockchain and you have data security without applying your own proof of work scheme.


Edit: for maximum practicality, what we can do now is what should be implemented, a simple database synchronizing both web, telephone, and in person contact between patients and doctors, a simple backend that any front end interface can update, whether it is a smart phone based booking, or direct doctor to pharmacist/hospital staff co-ordination of services; Basically, a workflow based database, that simply requires that a Front end interface observe the changes in the Blockchain and alert the required staff or medical services... instant synchornization of all staff within a Health Region, that could be very powerful.

It would probably need to start outside of the USA first and then after proving successful we could work it in here.  Other issues with USA is the HIPAA and the legal requirement for information to be private.  Some type of blockchain record of my frequent Dr visits are off putting to some/many right now.  Many other countries don't have the same laws or hangups about that stuff, so it would be easier to start somewhere else.  This could have amazing potential in countries where there is little or no healthcare.  There is a surprising amount of people who have smartphones in relatively undeveloped parts of the world. 

This idea is kind of like a snowball effect - once it takes hold somewhere, it will take off  

At least in the U.S., one of the primary problems with healthcare is the lack of a real market for the products and services. Since the tax code provides that health insurance premiums are considered pre-tax, most people have their insurance through their employers. Thus most purchasers of insurance don't directly know the premium being paid and evaluate it against the benefits received.

The apparent cost of bottom dollar coverage, like only paying $20 for your $100 primary care visit, is reduced, and so people pay to insure things that wouldn't normally be insured. They also don't tend to know the true cost of the visit, the lab tests that are ordered, the medicines, etc. In such a market, of course the price of everything goes up and up.

The question I am puzzling over is, how could bitcoin break that cycle and put price incentives back?

There is this place: https://www.microryza.com/ "FUND SCIENCE YOU BELIEVE IN"

We could just get them to accept BTC. Done!

Who needs Obamacare when you have Bitcare?

Charlie Lee alluded to using the blockchain to solve complex DNA sequencing to learn the roots of illnesses among other things. He talked about it being something an alt currency blockchain could accomplish, but I see it being more a layer on the original bitcoin protocol. Maybe the bitcoin 3.0 movement, where we are using the hundreds of millions of transactions going on every day to solve these complex problems in our bodies and environment.