Guest Post: HealthPocket: The Kayak of Health Insurance (Transcript)

Dec 21, 2012 1:25 PM ET
David E. Williams

By DAVID E. WILLIAMS

The audio for this podcast can be accessed here.

David Williams: This is David E. Williams, cofounder of MedPharma Partners and author of the Health Business Blog. I’m speaking today with Steve Zaleznick, Director for Consumer Strategy and Development at HealthPocket. Steve, thanks for joining me.

Steve Zaleznick: My pleasure, David.

Williams: What is the unmet need that you’re addressing with HealthPocket?

Zaleznick: The most fundamental unmet need is that when people are faced with extraordinary numbers of choices of health plans that the result does not go well. One example from a recently published article in Health Affairs indicated that only about 5% of Medicare prescription drug part D beneficiaries were in the least expensive plan.

There’s a huge opportunity to help people sort choices and make decisions that work better for them. The second largest need is that insurance distribution is expensive, and helping to reduce the cost of distributing the health insurance and getting people to the right plans will help solve some very significant needs in the marketplace.

Williams: Dealing with health insurance is very complicated. How do you actually achieve these goals?

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David E. Williams is co-founder of MedPharma Partners LLC, strategy consultant in technology enabled health care services, pharma, biotech, and medical devices. Formerly with BCG and LEK. MBA (Harvard), BA (Wesleyan)