Ask HN: What problem in your industry is a potential startup?
I work in health tech. Here are some problems:
* Helping patients select the right doctor. Currently most people use Yelp or through referrals. The problem is that Yelp has little correlation to quality of care. It&#x27;s very difficult for patients to evaluate a doctor - usually what they end up doing is evaluating the customer service aspect of the doctor (did they speak to me nicely, did they make me wait for an appointment, etc.) but no one is able to evaluate doctors based on the quality of care. 
* Helping doctors and patients estimate costs - Neither doctors or patients understand costs. it is very routine for a doctor to suggest getting a lab test from X place because they have experience working with the center. They have no idea that for your specific insurance plan this will cost you 2x another place and so you with an unhappy patient who blames their doctor for ripping them off. There should be tools to patients and doctors estimate costs.
* Helping patient select a health care plan from their employer or a marketplace - most patients have no idea what health care plan they are best on. However, theoretically if you have their history of claims and some guess on their future behavior, you should be able to tell them which health care plan makes the most sense for them
* Helping patients manage their chronic conditions. Most people are very lax about managing their health conditions, they skip appointments, choose brand names over generics, ignore refills, etc. Technology should be able to nudge them in the right direction and help them optimize on quality and costs.
* Building technology that encourages health behavior - A majority of the diseases attacking Americans are caused by lifestyle issues (diet, stress, drugs, exercise). If you could build technology solutions that help nudge people to healthier behavior, you would make solve a billion dollar problem for insurance companies; they would love to reduce the risk pool of their patients. This is a tough battle because even people who care about health are inundated with false information (think Dr. Oz or anti-vaxxers or people who insist every person in the world is a celiac and should go gluten free).<p>As you can see the bulk of the problems in the health care industry is understanding how to navigate the huge mess of the US healthcare system. A longer term solution is for us to build a single payer system and incentivize patient care over patient procedures but I doubt that will happen.