$4 billion Health Tech Startup Olive Overpromises and Underdelivers (axios.com) 24
Olive is the buzzy startup whose purple "go save health care" buses dominate industry conferences. But its promises to save health systems millions of dollars with its automation software don't deliver. Axios reports: An Axios investigation finds that Olive relies on rough estimations for its calculations, inflates its capabilities and, in many cases, generates only a fraction of the savings it pledges. Erin's reporting includes interviews with 16 people, including former and current employees and health tech executives.
Valued at $4 billion by firms like Tiger Global and Vista Equity Partners, Olive is the highest-profile startup in health care automation; a holy grail that promises to cut costs and direct more time toward patient care. In just 10 years, Olive's promise to reduce its clients' administrative spending by roughly 5X the cost of installing the software has garnered the attention of some of the largest health systems in the U.S. Axios' reporting, which includes interviews with 16 people -- including former and current employees, health tech executives and others -- finds Olive is failing to deliver on those promises.
Valued at $4 billion by firms like Tiger Global and Vista Equity Partners, Olive is the highest-profile startup in health care automation; a holy grail that promises to cut costs and direct more time toward patient care. In just 10 years, Olive's promise to reduce its clients' administrative spending by roughly 5X the cost of installing the software has garnered the attention of some of the largest health systems in the U.S. Axios' reporting, which includes interviews with 16 people -- including former and current employees, health tech executives and others -- finds Olive is failing to deliver on those promises.
epic is to big to fail in this market! (Score:4, Funny)
epic is to big to fail in this market!
Re: (Score:1)
epic is to big to fail in this market!
They're like the mafia ... those who know... know..
Why cut costs? (Score:2)
The USA healthcare system is designed and regulated in a way to maximise cost. It fundamentally keeps the industry going. There's no incentive to cut costs. These aren't low margin businesses and providers can generally charge whatever the hell they want.
Re: (Score:2)
The 30%+ overhead of insurance is what makes healthcare in the US cost so much. When an insurance company has to pay out on a claim they call that a loss. Insurance has no intention of returning your premiums to you, and cringes when it is forced to do so. A single payer system would help a lot in the US.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They very much want to cut costs, because then they keep charging the same (more, actually, there's always something else allegedly raising their costs), and their profits go up.
Those that think... (Score:1)
Anyone that thinks that the solutions for the US's healthcare issues are simple, easy, or straightforward obviously doesn't understand the nature of the problem.
Can it be done? Doubtful with everyone having their meat-hooks in the pie and the web of interconnectedness within the industry makes cobwebs easy to decipher.
Really? (Score:4)
A startup over-promises and under-delivers? I'm shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you! Next thing I know, you'll be telling me that gambling has been going on in this establishment!
Cutting Costs (Score:2)
1. Pay your doctor directly for basic health care
2. Have insurance for catastrophic events (long-term hospital stays)
3. (Optional) Health care savings accounts for everything in-between
Cutting out several dozens of layers of middle-men and bureaucracy will save *everybody* money - insurance companies, doctors and patients.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That you are proposing a quick, easy, three step solution indicates you don't have a clue as to what you're talking about and why things are structured as they are.
1) If folks had to pay their own way for basic healthcare / preventative they wouldn't use it - and instead opt to wait until the situation became an emergency/catastrophic.
2) Agreed -
3) It's tried, but extremely limited. FSA's are self-funded, and use it or lose it. Don't ask how that came about.. I fund it, but my employer claws it back if I
Re: (Score:2)
1) If folks had to pay their own way for basic healthcare / preventative they wouldn't use it - and instead opt to wait until the situation became an emergency/catastrophic.
Doctors are already trying this scheme. You pay a monthly fee and can go to the doctor for physicals and any minor ailment that they can take care of in the office. Monthly out of pocket to the patient is less than what would be deducted from from your paycheck to cover an HMO/PPO. Overall cost to the patient is less as you don't get the laundry list of up-charges typical of most doctors visits these days (referral fees, advice fees, examination fees, etc...)
It's, basically, private doctor insurance. The di
Re: (Score:2)
Standards not software (Score:2)
The U.S. healthcare industry needs information interchange standards, not new software.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Unless there's federal regulations with teeth forcing insurance companies to both adhere to those standards and make claim decisions in a single pass with the information provided under those standards the standards will not be used. Healthcare is an adversarial process where insurance is trying to increase complexity to force providers and patients to abandon claims. ACA fixed a little of that, but not much.
Re: (Score:2)
The US Heath Insurance system as we know it today needs to be abolished. Insurance is a big part of the problem.
Healthcare "market" is an oxymoron (Score:4, Interesting)
The supply demand curve on healthcare gets completely fucked because the normal market forces that apply to luxury goods and other things simply isn't going to work. Every other developed nation on earth has figured this out which is why they almost all have some degree of a subsidized, universal system, whether it's multi-payer or single-payer or nationalized. Simply put from a moral and economic standpoint healthcare needs a high amount of regulation to function. All the whizzbang apps in the world won't make up for that fact.
Simple fact of the matter is in the US we spend more per capita and a higher percentage of GDP on healthcare and we get generally worse or equal outcomes compared to nations with universal systems.
The argument in the US should be whether we go with a multi-payer vs single-payer universal system, not the current abomination vs literally anything else.
The Affordable Care Act combined with a public option is the actual "conservative" approach that maintains private insurance and provides a healthy level of competition. The fact that they can't actually hold that position makes the rest of us suffer.
So many jump in without realizing... (Score:5, Insightful)
There be dragons here.
My specialty is experience design. I spent a long time at a big US health care informatics form. At UX conferences, so many noobs would tell me "I can fix that awful design!" with the confidence that told me they hadn't scratched the surface with research.
There are legal, tort, education, human-factor, patient-safety and tons of other reasons healthcare informatics systems are beasts.
Anyone who jumps in cold and says "I can fix it and save you money!" is a good target for a short-sell.