David and Stephanie paid $5,000 for braces for each of their first two daughters. After discovering a consumer-driven health benefits plan, they paid $2,200 for daughter number three. A savings of 56%! And that was at the very same dentist in Glendale, California, that provided service for the two older children.



Dentists all across the USA are joining up with plans that support consumer-driven healthcare.

What is Consumer-Driven Healthcare?

Families are feeling the pain of healthcare costs in their pocketbooks. Corporate America is feeling the pinch, too.

That's why there's a movement toward consumer-driven health care, a concept still in it infancy but gaining momentum. It brings to health care the benefits that other consumer-driven industries enjoy - choice, information and control.

Transparency, or competition, reduced the prices and improved the quality of products in other industries. Consumers successfully make purchase decisions about cars, computers and financial products, so why can't they make an educated decision about their health care, asks industry expert Regina Herzlinger, Harvard Business School professor.

Why does consumer-driven health care work? It eliminates the insurance intermediary and puts the power to choose healthcare providers in the patient's hands. When providers and patients deal directly, cost savings are passed on to the patients.

Those savings can be substantial, considering that a doctor treating a patient with insurance coverage nets only about 42% of his customary fee. Between the discounts the doctor gives to the insurance company, and the cost of filing and collecting claims, up to 58% of the doctor's customary fees can be eaten away.

Consumer-driven healthcare companies such as discount health plan providers negotiate discounts for patients and pass the savings to their members. Members can receive substantial savings, and doctors and dentists can retain more of their revenue by eliminating the middleman.

Couple a discount health plan with a high-deducible medical plan, and a family could save substantially more than with traditional insurance methods. High-deductible plans - those with a $2,000 deductible or higher - protect a family when major medical expenses occur, such as a heart attack or cancer treatment.

And the discount health plan, which is not insurance, offers savings when patients visit the doctor for minor ailments. Combined, these two elements of consumer-driven health care are usually a less expensive alternative to today's health insurance.

Consumer-driven health care is the future of the industry. And using such a plan is exactly how David and Stephanie saved $2,800 dollars on braces for daughter number three!