Episode 425

EP425: Three Ways for "Regular" Clinical Practices to Take Cash When It's Cheaper for a Patient Than Using Their Insurance, With Marshall Allen

Feb 1, 2024

39:20

Episode Description

About half the time, the cash price for a medical service is actually cheaper than the "negotiated" insurance rate — a fact that matters enormously given that roughly 90% of patients never meet their deductible in any given plan year. Marshall Allen, investigative journalist and founder of Allen Health Academy, joins Stacey Richter to explain, in concrete operational terms, how a "regular" clinical practice that still takes insurance can also accept cash from insured patients when it's the better deal — without abandoning insurance altogether, and without running afoul of contracts that sound like they forbid it.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

✅ Why nearly half of insured commercial patients say they're delaying or forgoing care due to cost — and why those patients are invisible to clinicians who only see the people who show up

✅ How offering a clear, fixed cash price can reduce costly no-shows, which run practices as much as $7,500 a month, by giving patients pricing certainty for a next-day appointment instead of a six-months-out unknown

✅ The practical building blocks a practice needs to start taking cash from insured patients: a proper form, an actual set cash price, and a plan for how to market that option

✅ How Marshall Allen addresses the biggest objection practices raise — the belief that health plan contracts legally forbid accepting cash from an insured patient — including how HIPAA gives patients the right to request this

✅ Where to find fair-pricing benchmarks for setting a cash price, including tools like FAIR Health Consumer, BILLY, ColonoscopyAssist, Jason Health, and Green Imaging

WHY THIS MATTERS

This isn't a pitch for cash-only concierge medicine; it's about giving ordinary insurance-taking practices a legitimate, patient-friendly option for the very common situation where insurance makes care more expensive, not less. Practices that ignore this reality lose patients to care abandonment and revenue to no-shows, while patients who could have simply paid cash instead absorb costs they can't actually afford. Marshall Allen's framework turns a widely misunderstood pricing quirk into an accessible fix that benefits both sides of the exam table.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

EP363 with David Scheinker, PhD: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Other Apps

EP413 with Will Shrank, MD: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Other Apps

EP297 with Jerry Durham: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Other Apps

=== LINKS ===

🔗 Show Notes with all mentioned links: Episode Page

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