KATY, Texas — MediBid, an online marketplace where doctors provide bids to patients on medical care to bring competition back into the medical marketplace, along with its CEO, Ralph Weber, were named recently in the Petition for Declaratory Order Denying Representative Martin Daniel’s Public Records Request by Optum on December 12th, 2019.
The petition was sent to Laurie Lee, Executive Director of Benefits Administration for the Department of Finance and Administration for the State of Tennessee by representatives of Optum at the Nashville law office of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings, LLP.
Republican State Representative Martin Daniel initiated a request for information, referred to as a data request, from the Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration back in October of this year relating to allowable health care charges, billed charges, and actual amount paid. The public-information request by Representative Daniel was expected to be fulfilled in December of 2019 prior to the petition under Tennessee’s Public Records Act.
In the petition, Optum’s representatives name Ralph Weber, the CEO of MediBid, as “a potential Optum competitor,” after Weber was included in Representative Daniel’s request for information as having provided the spreadsheet of fields for the data request. Optum, a part of UnitedHealth Group which is the largest healthcare company in the world by revenue, is in a contract with the State to provide its Behavioral Health Organization services and Employee Assistance Program (EAP), a program for voluntary mental health services, for the public sector health insurance plans.
“At MediBid, we advocate for more transparency in medical costs, which ultimately leads to a reduction in the cost of healthcare,” said Weber. “This data request is all about bringing transparency back in. Recently, a MediBid user shared with us that he found an MRI through his insurance cost $2,500 but paid only $250 through MediBid.com. That $2,500 price happened because health insurance has removed all competition and transparent pricing from the medical marketplace, which artificially inflates the price.”
Approximately 117,000 medical providers are enrolled on MediBid.com and over 285,000 patients have used the service, including individuals looking for self-pay options, employees from more than 80 employers with self-funded health insurance plans, and faith-based organizations looking for a conservative alternative to the Affordable Care Act. MediBid does not have a contract with the State of Tennessee.
About MediBid
MediBid is an online marketplace focused on quality, choice, and value. As the marketplace for medicine, MediBid aims to reduce healthcare costs through competitive bidding and working directly with physicians and their staff as many insurance companies only show patients if a doctor is “in-network” or not with no system in place to check on price or quality. MediBid allows patients to see the training, education, and experience of the doctor along with the price before making a selection. Patients seeking medical care, employers looking to offer self-funded healthcare, and physicians wanting to offer their services may learn more at https://www.medibid.com.
Related link: https://www.medibid.com
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