Consumer-driven health plans (CDHP)
Arizona health system wins 'unreasonable' charges suit
An Arizona health system has won an appeal of a case that claimed it imposed "unreasonable" charges for care. The patients' health plan, a CDHP known as Medical Savings Insurance Co., sued Banner... Read more...
Study: Employers want more CDHP data
Large employers are increasingly embracing CDHPs (though employees aren't quite as enthusiastic). The problem is, the employers aren't happy with the level of data they're getting on the quality and... Read more...
NY officials demand halt to doctor-rating plan
As consumer-driven healthcare keeps evolving, rating physician quality and making those ratings public is only natural, right? Not in New York, it isn't. The state AG's office has issued a warning... Read more...
BCBS of Tenn. gives cost info before treatment
Climbing on the national transparency bandwagon, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee has kicked off a program for enrollees that will let them know ahead of time what they'll owe for physician visits. The program affects only the roughly 64,000 of the plan's 1.2 million Tennessee members who are currently enrolled in its consumer-driven health plan.
Under the pilot program, physicians' offices will be able to use BlueCross billing software to make the estimate, which should take …
Study: U.S. health consumers demand transparency
Health price and quality reporting may have started out a trendy insider notion, but it looks like those days are firmly over. Pushed by the growth of consumer-driven healthcare plans, consumers have begun to expect--often, to demand--detailed data from providers. Nearly 85 percent of consumers responding to a new survey said that they believed hospitals and doctors should be required to disclose their prices. And more than half of those responding said that they'd be influenced by such …
... Read more...Program briefs med students in financial realities
In Miami, medical students all get a briefing in the sometimes perplexing financial realities of their chosen profession--and some of them are a bit shocked by what they hear. For about 10 years, students at the University of Miami med school have spent a day at the headquarters of health insurer AvMed getting briefed on the latest financial issues facing practicing physicians. One-fourth of the med school's third-year class visits with health plan executives every three months. This …
... Read more...SPOTLIGHT: Employees dislike CDHPs
Sure, enrollees in consumer-directed health plans spend less than those enrolled in traditional plans--and that makes employers happy. But the employees aren't so pleased. New research suggests that employees aren't satisfied with their CDHPs, in part because they feel that they won't be able to find high-quality providers as easily. These stats call the whole future of the CDHP movement into question. Article
CFO booted out at WellPoint
WellPoint's finance chief has been pushed out of the company, accused of unspecified financial improprieties. Effective immediately, WellPoint senior vice president and chief accounting officer Wayne DeVeydt will take over as executive vice president and CFO. The company demanded that CFO David Colby resign after it concluded that Colby had violated the company's code of conduct. This came despite Colby's having been promoted only two months ago to vice chairman.
The company …
... Read more...Tenn. hospitals put prices online
Bowing to the pressures created by the consumer-driven healthcare trend, the Tennessee Hospital Association has created a website offering service prices for most of its 136 member hospitals. The site, which draws on data reported to the state from October 2003 to September 2004, list average prices for common procedures. HCA hospitals aren't included in the tally, but the site does link to HCA's own price disclosure sites. (HCA recently decided to disclose prices for common procedures at …
... Read more...Study: CDHPs lead patients to drop medications
New research funded by pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts has concluded that consumers give up medications rather than switch from brand-name drugs to generics. The study, which looked at healthcare claims for two national employers, compared prescription claims for the first nine months of 2005 versus the first nine months of 2006. The employers had kicked off CDHPs for their employees in January 2006, with one of the two employers seeing more than 20 percent of employees enroll. …
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