Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Crowd funding: Fighting increasing healthcare costs


Image Source: wearethepractitioners.com


In the world of technology and social media, crowd funding or the collective effort by individuals or groups to raise revenue via the Internet for creative projects or activities, such as building computer games or giving a bullied bus monitor a much-needed vacation, is very common. In the healthcare industry, however, crowd funding is not that common, at least until now.

Due to rising medical costs, underinsured and uninsured Americans are having a hard time shouldering their healthcare costs, which is why an increasing number of Americans turn to social media for help. An example of this would be Caleb Medley, a victim of the Aurora shooting incident. Caleb’s medical bills skyrocketed to almost $2 million after he was shot in the eye. With no way of paying that huge amount, his family and friends started a website and set up a Facebook page to raise money via crowd funding.


Image Source: crowdsourcing.org


In addition to social networking sites, many crowd funding sites, such as GoFundMe.comKickStarter.com, are also being used by Americans to raise money for health care that they could not otherwise afford. Websites like these generate a lot of funds, with GoFundMe.com’s Medical, Illness, and Healing category being the most popular category, attracting 17 percent of the total donations to the website. Some crowd funding websites, like GiveForward.com and YouCaring.com, specifically cater to medical crowd funding and also attract donations in the millions.

For Americans who cannot afford rising healthcare costs, crowd funding websites and medical travel providers that offer affordable, high-quality health care, such as Steven Lash’s Satori World Medical or David Boucher’s Companion Global Healthcare, can be a blessing.


Image Source: tech.co


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