MediBarter Launches First Healthcare Barter Exchange

Healthcare barter has been happening on local exchanges for years with businesses trading their goods and services for dental work, doctor visits, and cosmetic procedures. While this occurs sporadically, it’s a good window into the potential that barter holds for cash strapped businesses as well as healthcare providers. With the cost of labor, and materials and everything else going up, it may be time to take bartering for healthcare and anything else for that matter, more seriously. With this in mind, two entrepreneurs in New York have launched a barter exchange to bring doctors and businesses together for barter. The exchange is called MediBarter, and the company is based in Kings Park, NY. 

MediBarter wants to bring healthcare providers together to barter with each other as a way to reduce the cost of healthcare within the healthcare community itself. This unique aspect of MediBarter is intended to help any type of healthcare provider defray the cost of their own healthcare by trading with other providers. This gives healthcare providers a cashless option for getting anything from a doctor’s visit to dental work with no or minimal out of pocket costs. Many people assume doctors are wealthy, and they can afford the cost of health insurance and out of pocket costs. But this is far from reality as doctors are often burdened by medical school debt, high operating costs due to regulations and insurance carrier administration, and diminishing reimbursements. It’s the perfect financial storm, and it’s what’s driving many independent doctors to give up their practice and join larger hospital systems. For doctors and communities, this trend has negative consequences. MediBarter looks to help healthcare providers conserve their cash and trade for the healthcare they need for themselves, their family, and even their staff. Since the provider can set their own fees, not the insurance company, providers can get more value for their services than if they had serviced an insured patient. They also receive trade dollars in their MediBarter account within days. The ease and quick turnaround is a relief from the paperwork and long wait for insurance reimbursement. 

While provider to provider trading, or P2P as MediBarter calls it, is important, it’s essential to have businesses in the trading flow. This creates a liquid market for providers to offer their services to other providers and businesses, criss-crossing trades to build dollars in their account. With trade dollars on hand, providers can turn around and acquire the things they need for their office, home, or personal use. This includes contractor services such as painting, flooring, repairs, plumbing, electrical, bookkeeping, accounting, legal work, restaurant gift cards, and much more. MediBarter calls this the P2B part of their model. It’s the mechanism for providers to turn their services into the services and products they need. 

The B2B part of the MediBarter exchange is of course critical as businesses need to access a wide range of items, not just healthcare, and this is the foundation of any barter exchange. 

With the economy on shaky ground and healthcare providers under pressure, MediBarter believes it can make a difference for all of its members including healthcare providers and businesses. But the model doesn’t stop there, MediBarter offers free employees accounts in which a business or a medical practice can allocate trade dollars to its employees. This gives employees a cashless option for healthcare offsetting expenses that might otherwise be paid for out of pocket. 

With so much to offer the medical and business community, MediBarter is looking to become its own eco system for businesses, providers, and their employees.