Qliance company ditches health insurance and offers direct, affordable care to patients

Thursday, July 29, 2010 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Tags: health insurance, patients, health news

(NaturalNews) Qliance Medical Management, a three-year-old, Seattle-based health care startup company, now has a new funding contributor onboard. Drew Carey, the host of The Price is Right, recently contributed a sizable amount of money to the company, whose aim is to replace the costly, inefficient health insurance paradigm with direct, affordable care.

The way it works is Qliance charges its patients a small monthly fee to cover regular primary care services. Rather than operate like an insurance company with excessive paperwork, co-pays and other red tape, Qliance simply provides health care services at a consistent, low price.

The result? Savings of up to 50 percent or more on health care services for patients, and better quality care.

It is really quite simple. The money paid each month by patients goes directly to the clinics that provide the services. So instead of having to spend all their time filling out insurance paperwork, medical practitioners can spend that time serving patients instead.

According to Norm Wu, CEO of Qliance, roughly 40 percent of primary care costs in the insurance-based paradigm go towards processing insurance claims. When you cut that cost out of the equation, the amount of money saved is tremendous.

According to the company, about 70 employers in Washington have switched from insurance-based health plans to Qliance for their employees. When coupled with supplemental insurance for emergency situations that require surgery or other costly procedures, companies who provide Qliance for their employees still save an average of 20 to 50 percent in health care costs.

The beauty of Qliance is in the simplicity of its model. Customers pay a price for health services without having to get tangled up in a bloated, bureaucratic nightmare. It also shows that you do not need the government to get involved in order to provide quality health care at an affordable price.

It is precisely this type of model that maximizes health care quality and increases affordability. And since it is a private endeavor, it is not controlled by a centralized authority like it would be under universal, government-run care.

And as far as health freedom is concerned, private initiatives like those of Qliance leave room for alternative treatment options, while the government option will allow only what the FDA approves.

Sources for this story include:

http://vator.tv/news/2010-04-28-bezos-dell-c...