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Comment by tkiley | Hacker News Reader

Exactly. Originally, we experimented with offering this service to patients for free or for $2.99, but the hospitals were experiencing significant numbers of no-shows and bogus registrations; the $24.99 price point was actually requested by our pilot hospital as a form of data validation.

If we could find another way to keep the signal-to-noise ratio high, I would love to offer this service at a lower price point.

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I say don't lower your price. What you want to do is segment the demand curve for ER services and slice out those who are willing to pay more to avoid wasting hours of their time.

It seems lowering the price would gut your revenue but you wouldn't increase your userbase enough to make up for it (there would be a big deadweight loss of utility that patients get, but don't have to pay for -- lost revenue for you).

Also, ER is an incredibly expensive thing to go through, so mentally your users may be more price-insensitive than usual--they'll bucket all the costs together in a 'big bath', so you can charge more.

Very, very interesting. My first concern when I saw this site was concerning no-shows and late arrivals -- I know many doctor's offices are forced to double book appointments and therefore run extremely late, simply to maintain profitability in the face of lateness and no-shows. Have the hospitals had any issue with late arrivals throwing off the schedule? I'd imagine that if, after paying $24.99 for this service, a patient is still seen late, he or she would be rather (rightly) peeved.

Have you considered treating some of the fee as a deposit, refunded when the person shows up?

Awesome job, by the way.

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