CrowdHealth crowdfunding platform integrates Lightning and Breez SDKs

CrowdHealth, a crowdfunding platform for paying for medical experiences instead of insurance policies, is integrating Lightning payments with Breez’ Lightning SDK. The United States spends more than twice the average amount on health care compared to other developed countries with similar economies. Medical expenses are one of the leading causes of bankruptcy in America. It’s no secret that America’s health care system is problematic.

The CrowdHealth model is based on providing an alternative to traditional insurance policies at a cheaper price. With a monthly membership fee of just $50 per month, much lower than most insurance plans, CrowdHealth helps you negotiate your medical bills to get the lowest possible price, find a healthcare provider and manage your bills, get discounts on drug prescriptions, take advantage of member crowdfunding services, and more.

The crowdfunding aspect is a key differentiating feature of the platform. Instead of charging appropriate premiums to raise an insurance fund to pay claims, platform users donate a monthly fee directly to Crowdheatlh for bill negotiation and other functions, relying on voluntary crowdfunding from other members to meet their requirements. do. Funding requirements to actually pay medical bills. The idea, which appears to be working for its current 5,000-member user base, is that people pay forward to help others on the network in the hope that they will be repaid later if they need to cover the costs. unexpected expenses.

Prior to the Breez integration, the company had been functioning via existing fiat payment rails, which had successfully moved funds between members, but introduced two major overheads that fundamentally could not be handled by these rails:

First is the payment fee. Bank transfers can easily reach $20-30 in a single transfer, eating into donated funds that could be used for a member’s medical expenses. It also introduces an implicit minimum amount. If you need a wire transfer to transfer money, why would someone pay a $20 fee to contribute $2 to someone else’s bill? Lightning can drastically improve this situation by charging a transfer fee of just 1 cent for the amount the network can transfer within its liquidity limits.

Second, is the time it takes to make a payment. Depending on the circumstances, your bank transfer may take several days or weeks to process. If a medical procedure is urgently needed, a delay in settlement may actually cause physical harm to the subscriber if the health care provider requires payment up front or immediately after the procedure is completed on credit. Lightning helps you complete full and final payments in seconds.

Lightning integration using the Breez SDK allows an already innovative new business model to streamline costs and potentially improve scalability for members to crowdfund each other’s healthcare costs.