Transparency

We address 3 current problems that are contributing to the perpetual rising costs of health care:

1) Finding out pricing information prior to treatment is insanely difficult.
2) Uninsured patients pay the most for medical care.
3) Medical prices within the same geographic area have a tremendously wide variability.

Oftentimes more affordable health providers are nearby, but patient/consumers have no way to know their options. We see this an information problem. Consumer's would make different choices if they had actionable information. OkCopay is tearing down this information barrier that prevents people from accessing the care they need. By providing choice and clear actionable info, OkCopay allows people to avoid getting hit with surprising and often life-changing medical bills.

OkCopay is the first open service that allows people to find and compare routine medical care on the basis of price, convenience, and doctor credentials. At OkCopay.com users can search for providers based off the procedure they need and their location. We display all of the practitioners in their area and reveal actual provider prices (or details on the appropriate health clinic). We do for patients what kayak.com does for travelers. We also recognize that for some procedures you shouldn't choose a doctor solely on price. So you can filter your results based off of a doctors credentials (board certifications, years of experience, etc), proximity, and even office hours. We currently cover 72 routine procedures, as well as offering searchable data on free and sliding-scale health clinics.

OkCopay generates revenues by connecting highly cash-paying patients with health care providers seeking to grow their businesses. Immediate revenue streams include Promotional Advertising and transaction fees. The OkCopay Deal Board is a designated area where providers can list promotions or specials for a fixed fee. A provider's basic listing is free and our native search results reveal prices regardless of whether they are paying us or not. This promotes trust for our users. The promotions are clearly marked and strictly reserved for our "Deal Board" section of the website. These deals reinforce our mission. OkCopay’s unique position as a pricing platform makes it well suited to eventually facilitate transactions on our site and to receive both transaction fees and referral income.

While there are many sites that offer doctor listings, ratings, and reviews none provide comprehensive pricing data. Visitors to the site come to OkCopay because we are the only ones collecting, verifying, and providing this data free to the public. Even Google or other search engines can't help you find provider prices.

For providers, OkCopay uniquely offers the unique ability to reliably reach targeted higher-margin consumers in the final stage of their purchasing process.

Its important to point out that even with the Affordable Care Act, there are expected to be over 20 million uninsured Americans in 2017. Furthermore, gaps is coverage will remain. For example Vision & Dental will remain outside of mandated coverage. Additionally, elective care will continue not to be covered.

OkCopay is for people with gaps in insurance coverage who are paying out-of-pocket for health care. The website covers routine non-urgent medical procedures. OkCopay is focused on 3 distinct segments of self-pay patients:
1. Of the 49 million uninsured Americans, we estimate 50% have the ability to search online and pay for routine health services. Most are working as hourly employees, part-time, freelancers, artists, or in other jobs that don’t offer health coverage.
2. People with gaps in their insurance coverage. For eg, there are over 130 million Americans without either vision or dental insurance.
3. Patients seeking elective care such as LASIK eye surgery or cosmetic procedures. Elective care is not covered by insurance. Over 9.5 million cosmetic procedures performed in 2012.

OkCopay reaches our target market in a number of ways. We have already developed promotional relationships with local government agencies, non-profits, and professional employer organizations. This is to reach people without care.

We have also partnered with benefits brokers in one market to reach those people who are employed, have health care, but lack vision or dental coverage. We have built and deployed an "embeddable widget" on their pages to allow their users to conduct searches of our database directly from their website. This helps us gain tremendous traffic while adding a unique feature to our distribution partners.

We are also very strong on Search Engine Optimization and generate about 40% of our traffic via this medium.

OkCopay’s search platform empowers people to “shop” for health care based on price, convenience, and doctor qualifications. OkCopay’s database includes over 70 common medical and dental procedures.

We have a created a unique data collection process. We gather data from a number of different sources. Then we verify and validate all of the information ourselves.

Our database platform was created to help people quickly find the information they are looking for. The filtering system is similar to other highly popular comparison shopping services in other industries.

Defined broadly, our competitors are any resource that people use to help them find doctors. Online that has tended to be search engines, directory sites, and increasingly ratings and review sites. Our challenge is to acquire significant "Share of Voice" to compete with them. Most poeple do not know they can shop on doctor prices. All of the above could be potential partners.

Internal-
- Building a high-quality team on a limited budget
I am focusing on hiring based off of attitude and passion. Many people have contacted me with a strong interest to work with OkCopay, so starting in March, I will dedicate a few hours a week to recruiting.
- Finding like-minded investors
- Raising awareness is a major obstacle
In every other industry, people shop around before they make a purchase, whether it’s buying groceries, a car or an airline ticket. This is expected behavior. But this is a new concept for many in the US health system.
Shopping for medical providers is a revolutionary concept in the US health system. The hurdle of changing norms and behaviors will be challenge for us to overcome. Forunately, aligned monetary incentives will promote change.

-Form Distribution Partnerships with state and local gov't agencies, private employers, and local non-profits. Continue innovating on product development, including mobile apps, telephone call center, and other resources to make it easy for people to find the care they need.
-City by city rollout

OkCopay has already developed promotional relationships with local government agencies, non-profits, and professional employer organizations. We have over 75,000 prices in our database across 8 US cities. OkCopay is well-positioned to become a central platform that supports the consumer-directed health movement.

Reach more people via geographic expansion. Cover additional medical procedures and ancillary services where it makes sense.

15 cities by end of 2013.
35 cities by 2014.
Add technical and sales staff
Execution on Advertising/Marketing/User Acquisition Strategy
Ongoing product development

Patient leaders have a valuable role to play in tackling the problems facing health and social care at a national and local level, but we need to improve the development of and access to learning opportunities in order to grow this pool of talent, Amidst chaos of reform and unprecedented challenges to improving health, the biggest asset we have - people who live with health problems and use services - remains untapped. Instead, patients are a problem to be solved, not the solution. Meanwhile, patient and public engagement has been co-opted by institutional interests as a buffer against change, rather than as a co-production engine for it. We need a new generation of 'unusual suspects' who can act strategically to help tackle crises in health and social care

Patient leadership is:
Rooted in self-leadership - patients learning about themselves to steer their own life.
A work in progress - good leaders develop through continuous learning
Dependent on context - involves a complex mixture of interdependent behaviours

Our learning approaches incorporate:
Co-design and co-delivery
More than ‘chalk and talk’ - We use highly interactive methods
Working with what happens in the room - Leaders learn from practicing and reflecting on how they behave
Acting into a new way of thinking - We help people to construct meaning and knowledge from experiences by practicing on their ‘live’ issues
Working with others – integrating dialogue and inquiry
Process skills of leadership - skills of relationship-building and influencing

We provide patient leaders - patients, service users and carers who influence change with:
Learning and Support - a variety of face to face offers and facilitated e-learning
Network and Community of Practice - Patient Leaders become Members of The Centre for Patient Leadership
Ongoing support to take next steps

We provide healthcare organisations with support based on co-production principles to foster patient leadership

Equipped with the capability to influence change, PLs will help shift power relationships underpinning healthcare to a truly patient-centred model. This will transform:
Patient experiences and outcomes (responsiveness)
Quality of decision-making (transparency, governance and accountability)
Trust and confidence
Financial viability of healthcare systems

We are in a unique position with regards to the UK and international market, as
Thought-leaders (around the policy and practice of patient leadership)
Pioneers in providing learning and support to a new generation of health leaders able to shift the very fabric of how health and healthcare is delivered.
Offering constructive and sustainable solutions to healthcare organisations in the current economic climate

Our customers are two-fold:
1. Health and healthcare organisations (customers) - local, regional, national, international - these organisations resource individual beneficiaries (patient leaders) who are:
2. Patients, service users and carers (direct beneficiaries)

We have run learning programmes for organisations at national, regional and local level (e.g. NHS Commissioning Board, now NHS England; NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement; Midlands and East Strategic Health Authority; National Voice - the umbrella organisation for the health voluntary sector; various commissioning organisations and provider trusts). We have undertaken a variety of programmes, ranging from one day workshops to five month programmes (with coaching) to over 500 patient leaders.

We have marketed progammes to commissioners, providers & national agencies. Given the shifting policy environment, our marketing strategy will segment in the following ways, towards:
1. National agencies (in service development, research, third sector) - these will also help ceate the environment for patient leadership
2. Commissioners of health and social care
3. Providers (acute hospital trusts, community and primary care providers)
4. Condition-related organisations/initiatives (eg. building on recent success in renal field) & moving towards focus on long term conditions
5. Locality and regionally based work (building on recent successful programmes in the Midlands)

Each of the above require bespoke business cases that focus on relevant incentives (e.g. safety for hospitals)

We provide
Learning and support for Patient Leaders
Networks and communities of practice;
Information, advice and support for Patient Leaders

For organisations:
We provide organisational development support that fosters the cultures and systems for patient leadership (NB. We have just produced the first Guide for NHS organisation to foster patient leadership - see 'resources' section on our website)

We also undertake research and policy with partners that will help create the wider cultures and systems and enviornment for patient leadership

We are unique thus far. National professionally-led training organisations are beginning to take an interest in patient leadership, but don't (and may never) truly understand the model; Patient-led & Third Sector organisations are at an early stage of being able to deliver training programmes and these are based on very different learning models to those we believe in and offer.

There is a window of opportunity (3-5 yrs) to create a social movement for patient leadership before an idea like this is 'captured' by mainstream organisations and distorted to fit institutional needs and the status quo. In this time, In this time, our work needs to support & develop a critical mass of patient leaders who share the values and have the skills necessary to radically shift the face of healthcare

The current policy and practice environment is volatile and organisations do not yet recognise the value of patient leadership - and may not want it if they truly understood it! On the other hand, the steep rise in demand demonstrates that another set of players want us to step up to the mark. To overcome this paradoxical state of affairs, we need to:
Hone and articulating the vision - communicate the business case to all stakeholders
Build capacity for delivery at scale and pace
Refine the operating and business model
Clarify roles & responsibilities;
Move to mixed investment strategy
Ensure quality
Beware of mission creep (eg other areas of citizen/lay leadership)
Stick to our values
Develop range of accessible learning offers/curriculum (incl. facilitated e-learning)

These phases are largely being run in parallel:
Phase One: Market Research & marketing strategy based on refined assessment of current landscape and potential funders (including assessment of investment and philanthropic options)
Phase Two: Building infrastructure, operating model and capacity for delivery at scale;
Phase Three: Developing the offer (to patient leaders, organisations)

We have significant interest in our work from organisations & Patient Leaders themselves; hugely positive feedback from programmes (500 'alumni') Recent experience of delivery at scale and pace; Proof of concept of operational and delivery model (incl train the trainers; online network; virtual learning environment); high profile (e.g. articles and network interest)

In the next 3-5 years, we aim to grow from £100k/yr turnover to £1-2m/year (yr 2) and double that by year 5. This will depend on developing 'Patient Leaders' as the 'go to' place for an expanding range of learning programmes and establishing the Centre for Patient Leadership as a non-profit making research & policy organisation.

Short term (1-2 yrs): £500,000 turnover, six new learning programmes (300 alumni); development of online network; six new core associates; Establishment of operational model to deliver at scale and pace (with financial director on board at least p/t and project manager f/t)
Medium Term (3-5 rs): £1-2m turnover, 40 programmes, expansion of offers; Thriving membership of community; UK-wide delivery;

NB. There will be a general election in 2015 and this will inevitably lead to shifts in policy and practice. We will need to adapt our work and growth plans for these circumstances.