Humana consumer model draws interest

As the focus of the insurance market begins to shift from employers to individual consumers, insurers are changing the way they have traditionally interacted with customers. Humana is an example of a company that has been forced to "start worrying about what consumers think," according to The Wall Street Journal. But that hasn't necessarily been bad for business. Au contraire, after actually looking at how consumers interact with health plans and the information they provide--research practices that many other industries have used for decades--Humana has done well. Profits are up and the company's shares have more than doubled in the past two years and 2.4 million customers have signed up for its Medicare Part D plans. The company now sees its consumer-driven healthcare plans as the future of its business.

"The number one driver of [higher health costs] is the third-party payer system," comments Humana CEO Michael McCallister. "It focuses on the employer and the medical provider and the feeling is that consumers are stupid."

- read this article from The Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)

PLUS: A study from consultants PriceWaterhouseCoopers shows that many big corporations do not give out helpful healthcare information to employees. Report

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