Hits & Misses #2 – 2009/2/26
One-third of New York Medicaid patients don't bother to re-enroll. Paperwork is one problem.
Health IT in the UK. They text message STD test results to teenage patients.
Anger kills. But only in people who already have a heart problem.
Wyoming creates HSA pilot program. It's an alternative to Medicaid.
For-profit company creates products for the uninsured. $85 physician visits and 20% off on tests.
If people do not bother to re-enroll in Medicaid, that is a statement about the value they place on it.
And if they don’t value the insurance, that must mean they have ways of getting health care without it.
I think the for-profit service for the uninsured is very interesting. It is yet another example of the market responding to unmet needs when there are no third-party payers around.
In most state Medicaid enrollment is retroactive for months. So, you can get sick, get treated, take the time to enroll in Medicaid and have your past treatment covered. Why bother to enroll ahead of time?
Plus, the dernier cri in health care reform is to do away with all those nasty eligibility requirements and paperwork so that any resident of an area is eligible whether he is a citizen or not. The enrollment requirements are usually about as hard to fulfill as getting a library card, meaning they areslightly more onerous than voting.