Healthcare e-commerce startup Fair Market Health was dreamed up when a group of physicians from Wichita, Kan., decided they wanted to replicate the patient and provider benefits of a cash-based Oklahoma City ASC, Wichita Business Journal reported April 13.
"The idea became, instead of building a physical surgery center, to accumulate and grab all those cash prices and put them on an online marketplace that's available to consumers," CEO Dean Jargo said.
The company launched in 2018 and has rapidly grown across Kansas, according to the report. Mr. Jargo told Wichita Business Journal that the company is seeing a lot of demand, and it looks to launch in adjacent markets later this year.
The startup offers an online health marketplace with transparent prices. Consumers can log onto its website and find providers with the best cost for the service they need. The posted price includes both the provider's and Fair Market Health's fee, and providers aren't charged to be on the platform.
The price is all-inclusive, and for patients with employer groups there's no cost-sharing, Sara Berney, Fair Market Health's director of customer experience, told Wichita Business Journal.
"In most cases, we're seeing employer groups set up with 100% coverage. It's not taking anything away, it's just enhancing what they have available. It's just a completely different way of navigating the healthcare system," Ms. Berney told the publication.
Fair Market Health leaders say are cutting the unneeded costs of the third-party payer system, and the company is increasingly finding providers fatigued by the traditional model's red tape.
"Does insurance need to be involved in every healthcare transaction?" Mr. Jargo asked the publication. "It does not."