Sesame, a direct-to-patient health care company that focuses on offering discounted health care with upfront pricing, is launching Wednesday in Houston.
Sesame vets each physician, dentist and therapist before they're listed on the page. Each provider posts their available appointment times online, and the idea is that patients know how much they must pay at the time they book. About 100 providers will be available when it launches.
Based in Brooklyn, founder David Goldhill launched the company's platform in Kansas City last year and chose Houston as its next location. Goldhill saw opportunities to expand their services in Texas, which boasts the highest percentage of uninsured residents in the country at 18 percent of the population.
Houston in particular, he said, might an appetite for discounted medical services, especially as health care costs rise.
“There are large numbers of people who have less formal work relationships, perhaps gigs, that make them more creative about how to piece together coverage for their families,” Goldhill said.
Some Sesame visits are cheaper than average without insurance; others are on-par for the course. An in-person visit with a therapist, for example, costs $82, compared to $100 to $200 in out-of-pocket costs.
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But a mammogram at Green Imaging, a medical imaging company based in Houston, through the Sesame platform costs $357 while the nationwide average price for a diagnostic mammogram was $349, according to Susan G. Komen, a national breast cancer awareness organization.
Being transparent with pricing and offering services directly, rather than going through insurance, makes patients more likely to see the doctor when they need to, said Dr. Cristin Dickerson, the radiologist who founded Green Imaging.
That's crucial for patients who might need to see specialists or get extra lab tests done, but are afraid of hidden or high costs.
"A lot of people go without care because they can't afford to go down the hall at the hospital for them," Dickerson said.
Critics of such models acknowledge that the draw for patients is the chance to get the care they need without pricey health insurance. But services like Sesame and other direct primary care options don't help if a patient needs to go to the emergency room.
“We’re not advocating for people not to have health insurance,” Goldhill said. But he said Sesame is a solution for people who can't afford to purchase an insurance plan, or who might have a high-deductible or catastrophic coverage plan but want regular care.
Sesame makes money from a transaction fee that applies every time a patient makes an appointment. Doctors do not pay to advertise on the service.
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