Making money
One Medical could be “the poster child”
for health care in 2020, said Bertha
Coombs in CNBC.com. The company,
which just filed to go public, is one of a
batch of health-care firms trying to shake
up traditional primary-care offices, which
provide an often-lacking experience for
patients and stingy insurance reimburse-
ments for doctors. With One Medical,
a $199 annual fee gets you access to
“same-day office visits and 24-hour ac-
cess to primary-care doctors.” For the
company’s roughly 400,000 members,
the appeal “is convenience,” said Jaimy
Lee in MarketWatch.com. But the company, which aims its
services “primarily at working-age adults who get their health
insurance through their jobs,” is also signing up employers—
including Google, one of its biggest clients—eager to slow the
growth of employee medical costs. One Medical also promises
a friendlier experience for consumers. Even its investment pro-
spectus promises to “delight millions of members with better
health,” echoing the language of brands such as Lululemon and
Peloton. The word “delight” was used by only one of the top
200 health-care companies in an investor presentation in 2019.Primary-care networks such as One Medical make money in sev-
eral ways, said Bob Herman in Axios.com. They collect mem-
bership fees from individual customers and employers, whose
workers get “unlimited access to One Medical’s clinics.” Insur-ers also pay One Medical for care that
patients receive at practices using “tra-
ditional ‘fee-for-service’ agreements.”
But there’s one more source of revenue
you might want to know about before
signing on: hospitals that pay fixed
sums annu ally to One Medical. And
when One Medical patients “need more
intensive and expensive care,” they get
sent to those hospitals “instead of com-
petitors down the street.” Hospitals are
essentially “finding a new way to buy
patient referrals.”If that worries you, there is a step up from One Medical, said
Selena Simmons-Duffin in NPR.org: “direct primary care.” For
an annual fee, you get “a long, thorough annual physical exam
(lab work included)” and “no waiting room time for same-
day appointments.” You may also get your doctor’s cellphone
number. When these “concierge” medical practices first emerged
in the 1990s, some charged members up to $30,000 a year.
“But lower-priced models have since cropped up,” and the aver-
age price is now around $93 a month. This generally pays for
all the primary physician’s services; your insurance company
isn’t involved at all. While some patients still brag about their
“concierge” medical services, doctors are avoiding the term,
which “makes medical care sound like it is for an elite group.”
Instead, they’re pitching the service as a way to get back to an
old- fashioned doctor-patient relationship.Medicine: An annual fee for a doctor on demand
BUSINESS 37
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Will you be ‘delighted’ to pay $199 a year?Is Intuit smothering Mint?
“What happened to Mint?” asked Rob
Pegoraro in FastCompany.com. The once
groundbreaking personal-finance service is
exhibiting “severe symptoms of neglect.”
Mint aggregates transaction data to show you
“where your money comes and goes,” but
as its founder, Aaron Patzer, says, “it could
be doing much more.” Patzer sold Mint to
Micro soft’s Intuit in 2009, thinking Mint
would eventually sync with TurboTax. A
decade later, that has not happened, so trans-
ferring Mint’s data to TurboTax is still “a
laborious ordeal.” Mint’s investments page,
which should allow you to easily monitor
your portfolio, “has spent years apologizing
to me for needing Adobe’s vulnerability-
riddled Flash plug-in” to simply view stock
performance graphs. It also “mischaracterizes
too many transactions” and has not made any
updates to its features since April 2019.Uber tests letting drivers set prices
Uber is experimenting with a program in Cali-
fornia that allows certain drivers to set their
own fares, said Amrita Khalid in Qz.com.
The move is a response to the state’s new AB5
gig economy law, and the change is designed
to help Uber make the case that it’s a techplatform, not an “employer” subject to Cali-
fornia’s new rules. Only Uber drivers serving
the airports will be able to set their own price,
“up to a maximum of five times that of Uber’s
base price”; the program will also let drivers
charge lower fares, opting out of Uber’s surge
pricing in periods of high demand. Critics
think drivers ultimately won’t benefit much
from this newfound autonomy. “Since jobs go
to the lowest bidder, some believe drivers will
end up earning far less that they did.”New credit scores may hurt debtors
Your credit score may be about to change,
said AnnaMaria Andriotis in The Wall Street
Journal. Fair Isaac, the company responsible
for the three-digit FICO score, announced a
new model that will score consumers with
rising debt levels more harshly. FICO 10 will
assess debt levels over a period of two years,
rather than just the previous month. People
whose credit cards stay close to the limit for a
sustained period of time could see their scores
drop. Unsecured debt from riskier personal
loans will also be flagged. Those with already
high scores could see a bump up on their credit
reports. However, not right away: FICO intro-
duced its latest revision, FICO 9, in 2014, and
most lenders are still on earlier versions.What the experts say
The Georgia
Transplant
Foundation
(ga trans
plant.org)
helps the state’s organ transplant candi-
dates and recipients with both financial
and emotional needs. Its short-term
financial assistance includes stipends to
help cover the cost of housing, medical
insurance premiums, medications, emer-
gencies, and organ fundraising assistance.
The organization will match funds raised
by transplant recipients themselves with
up to $10,000. To provide emotional sup-
port for individuals awaiting or undergo-
ing transplant surgery, the organization
pairs them with mentors who are suc-
cessfully living with a new transplant. The
mentorship program is designed to help
transplant recipients navigate the process
and deal with the complicated emotional
consequences of a lifesaving operation.
Both mentors and mentees benefit from a
relationship with a partner who is able to
understand their experiences firsthand.Charity of the week
Each charity we feature has earned a
four-star overall rating from Charity
Navigator, which rates not-for-profit
organizations on the strength of their
finances, their governance practices,
and the transparency of their operations.
Four stars is the group’s highest rating.