I fall squarely in the category of someone that typically hates attending industry events – conferences, awards shows, fundraisers, galas, etc. – and I think most are a waste of time. Maybe that's due to my social introvert personality, or maybe it's because my experience at 90% of such events has been largely negative from being overrun by too many recruiters and salespeople looking to generate a quick lead – perhaps it's a bit of both. However, as with many things in life, there's always an exception to the rule, and my case, there is one annual event I eagerly look forward to: The NTC Awards. Or, as I like to categorize it, the largest annual gathering of tech talent in Nashville to celebrate our community equally and authentically.

This year's ceremony planning has officially kicked off, with nominations closing on Friday 10/1 for the 15 award categories handed out to both companies and individuals. Unlike many "pay to play" schemes, this awards show is the real deal in that there's an entire process behind the scenes to level the playing field and ensure finalists and winners have an equal shot at winning. Judges are kept anonymous, conflicts of interest are vetted beforehand (i.e., a judge for a particular category cannot work for any of the nominees or finalists), and sponsorship dollars have no influence on the outcome. For those reading, I would encourage you to review the categories, make nominations if and where you feel they are appropriate, and attend the event in January.

Our Data & Analytics team at Healthcare Bluebook was fortunate to be nominated for one such award two years ago: Technology Team of the Year. Regardless of the outcome, we were excited just to be nominated, and soon found ourselves a finalist of the category and competing against two other teams from companies that dwarfed us in size and revenue. Challenge accepted, and we were given a final question that was both practical and thought-provoking. The rest of this post is the answer Mikil Taylor and I gave that provided the final momentum we needed to win the award.



Why do you deserve to win this award? (2019 Finalist)

Let’s take a hypothetical journey...

It’s the evening of January 23rd, the night of the NTC Awards. You’re sitting at a table alongside your colleagues on the bottom floor when you receive an urgent work-related call. The music is too loud to take the call inside, so you quickly sprint outside to answer. Before you make it two steps out of the front door, you slip on wet pavement from a rain turned to sleet downpour, follow by a loud crack from a bone-meets-concrete impact. After glancing both ways to determine what level of embarrassment was just witnessed from the lingering bystanders, you quickly stand up, only to feel a sharp pain traverse across your right knee. Something was just torn, and now you can barely walk.

The next day you schedule a same-day visit to the doctor, who assess the damage and quickly refers you to an orthopedic surgeon. After limping into the surgeon’s office with a sore and swollen right leg, you are told you need to have a knee arthroscopy, a procedure used to diagnose and treat a variety of knee-related problems. The doctor suggests you schedule the procedure with Acme Medical Center (name intentionally obfuscated) just down the street. You oblige and make the call, visit the facility a couple of days later, find out you have a torn meniscus and misaligned patella, have both repaired, then spend several weeks in recovery. All is going well, and just as you can start to bear weight on your right leg, the bill finally arrives in the mail. The total amount is $11,229, and between the deductible and coinsurance from your health plan, you owe nearly half that amount. As you cope with the sticker shock, try not to fall down (again).

This may be a fictional narrative, but one truth does exist in the story: there is currently a facility in the Nashville market listed as “in-network” for most major insurers that charges nearly $12,000 for a knee arthroscopy. Some might say, “What’s the big deal? Healthcare is expensive, and if you didn’t have insurance this facility would charge you 2 – 3x that amount.” Quite true, but what if we told you the same surgeon performs knee arthroscopies at another in-network facility nearby with no difference in quality and for a total price of $2,469? That’s almost ten thousand dollars less, even though it’s the same doctor performing the same surgery. Now imagine this type of price disparity across thousands of procedures and tests in every city across the country—if you weren’t aware of the severity of this problem before, then you are certainly aware of it now, and it’s from this opportunity that we’ve saved patients nearly $234 million across 5,000+ clients since day one.

Healthcare transparency is a battle of entrenched interests, with many organizations spending millions to obfuscate and misdirect on practical solutions. The issue has become so grave that our federal government has started to consider—in an extremely rare case of bipartisanship—ways to solve this problem. However, many companies in the private sector have been fighting this conflict in the shadows for quite some time—in our case, for over a decade. 

Winning this award would be a phenomenal experience for our team, and we would be forever grateful to the community and those individuals entrusted with selecting us for such an honor. However, winning for us has a more intrinsic definition—awareness. If, during the night of the awards, a single individual in the audience sees the name “Healthcare Bluebook” on-screen and at some later point in life—perhaps while experiencing a similar injury as described above—used our service to save thousands of dollars, then we win. Every dollar saved is a victory for us, and bit-by-bit we will chip away the foundations of entrenched interests in pursuit of our mission statement: “Protect Patients by Exposing the Truth and Empowering Choice”. When you look along the 1st floor balcony the night of the awards, you will see 18 individuals on our Data & Analytics team that have dedicated their careers to this cause. Our resolve is strong, and our goal is clear—we're fighting for each of you.

Thank you for your time and consideration for this award.

- Healthcare Bluebook Data & Analytics Team