That's all it will cost a healthy, 35-year-old male under a new Blue Cross plan in Miami. Plan has a $250 deductible, a $2,500 out-of-pocket limit and a $5 million lifetime maximum. How they do it?
This is from a press release from Blue Cross:
Care Comparison allows [patients] to evaluate total treatment costs as well as quality, safety and accessibility information for dozens of common elective procedures….. Five Blue Cross companies have collaborated to make this tool available to 22 million members throughout the country….. Care Comparison takes unique “packaged” events of care and provides data on all related services and not just the cost of the procedure itself. For example, a package of care for surgery could include charges for the surgeon’s services, lab work performed, anesthesia and use of the facility.
As previously reported here, here, here and here. EMRs work best when they are essential to the services doctors offer. That is, when they help providers do their jobs. A personal and portable EMR is essential, for example, for online or telephone consultations with a whole network of doctors. Here are three cases:
The big problem: state licensing laws that prevent a physician licensed in one state from "practicing medicine" in another state. More.
Jamie Robinson and Paul Ginsburg have paired up in Health Affairs to take another shot at consumer driven health care. This is one of the most peculiar articles I’ve read on the subject. You can tell which author wrote which part of the piece. Ginsburg (Center for Health System Change) has long been a skeptic who is willing to look at the evidence. Jamie Robinson (UC Berkeley), on the other hand, has been consistently foaming-at-the-mouth hostile. About a year and a half ago he gave a speech to the Consumer Driven Summit where he declared the death of consumer driven health care (CDHC) in favor of what he termed “managed consumerism.” He had a list of about ten particulars, but as we wrote at the time, he was wrong on every single one. He just hadn’t bothered to look at the evidence. Continue reading Health Affairs Slams CDHC
The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association has released its 2008 survey of member experience in CD Health plans. There is a lot of information here, not all of it positive:
Approximately 25% of consumers who are given a choice of plans choose an HSA-eligible product, but the percentage choosing an HRA has dropped from 23% in 2007 to 12% in 2008.Grassley Goes After Nonprofits. “The legislation would require nonprofit hospitals to spend a minimum amount on free care for the poor…and set curbs on executive compensation and conflicts of interest….”
Whose Life Is It Anyway? “Some companies are tying payments to medical test results. This year, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota is offering $200 insurance rebates to its own employees who can maintain ‘healthy levels’ of blood pressure, cholesterol and other risk factors – or show they’re making an effort to improve them.”
Walk-in Clinics Expand Access. For once, a Commonwealth Fund study we like.
Cost Shifting from Medicare, Medicaid Dwarfs Cost Shifting from the Uninsured. “Underpayment by Medicare and Medicaid costs private insurers $89 billion a year, raising the cost of coverage for a family of four by $1,788.” Hat tip to Greg Scandlen.
Blue Cross Blue Shield Association has unveiled the results of its latest survey of Consumer Driven Health Plans (CDHP). This year’s presentation reveals that: