Nearly 40 years to the date they were conceived, managed care plans come together to come to the realization that to stay in business they should focus on patients not on cutting costs...
amednews.com
Insurers are the new worried well (America's Health Insurance Plans annual meeting)
In the wake of declining profits, health plan executives discuss what they need to do to remain viable. Their solution: focus on changing patient behavior.
By Emily Berry, AMNews staff. July 28, 2008.
Reports from conferences important to physicians
Paul Wallace, MD, a Kaiser Permanente medical director, stood before other health plan leaders during a packed session at the annual meeting of America's Health Insurance Plans in San Francisco in June and told them their job is no longer to pay bills, but to manage members' health.
Paul Wallace, MD, a Kaiser Permanente medical director, stood before other health plan leaders during a packed session at the annual meeting of America's Health Insurance Plans in San Francisco in June and told them their job is no longer to pay bills, but to manage members' health.
They got the message. As Dr. Wallace concluded, he asked the audience: "Is anyone here not in the behavior-change business?"
No hands went up.
The admonition that health plans are meant to manage care might not sound new, given that back in the early 1970s HMOs were created to do just that. But health plans are now talking about managing care not only as essential for their members' health, but essential to their own.
That message echoed throughout the AHIP Institute, the name for the annual meeting of the trade group representing health plans.
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2008/07/28/bisa0728.htm
But let's not get too enthusiastic....just a couple of months ago the HMOs said they would dump patients to protect profit margins...
BUSINESS
Health plans say they'll risk losing members to protect profit margins
Meanwhile, businesses and individuals are dropping coverage in the wake of higher insurance premiums.
By Emily Berry, AMNews staff. May 19, 2008.
The nation's largest publicly traded health plans say they don't plan to temper premium increases for the sake of keeping members on their rolls -- particularly not while they are under pressure from Wall Street over what it sees as their disappointing earnings.
Article here
And let's not forget how AHIP and CBO are working together to "bend the curve" on health care by setting up a comparative effectiveness institute run by government bureaucrats....
amednews.com
Insurers are the new worried well (America's Health Insurance Plans annual meeting)
In the wake of declining profits, health plan executives discuss what they need to do to remain viable. Their solution: focus on changing patient behavior.
By Emily Berry, AMNews staff. July 28, 2008.
Reports from conferences important to physicians
Paul Wallace, MD, a Kaiser Permanente medical director, stood before other health plan leaders during a packed session at the annual meeting of America's Health Insurance Plans in San Francisco in June and told them their job is no longer to pay bills, but to manage members' health.
Paul Wallace, MD, a Kaiser Permanente medical director, stood before other health plan leaders during a packed session at the annual meeting of America's Health Insurance Plans in San Francisco in June and told them their job is no longer to pay bills, but to manage members' health.
They got the message. As Dr. Wallace concluded, he asked the audience: "Is anyone here not in the behavior-change business?"
No hands went up.
The admonition that health plans are meant to manage care might not sound new, given that back in the early 1970s HMOs were created to do just that. But health plans are now talking about managing care not only as essential for their members' health, but essential to their own.
That message echoed throughout the AHIP Institute, the name for the annual meeting of the trade group representing health plans.
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2008/07/28/bisa0728.htm
But let's not get too enthusiastic....just a couple of months ago the HMOs said they would dump patients to protect profit margins...
BUSINESS
Health plans say they'll risk losing members to protect profit margins
Meanwhile, businesses and individuals are dropping coverage in the wake of higher insurance premiums.
By Emily Berry, AMNews staff. May 19, 2008.
The nation's largest publicly traded health plans say they don't plan to temper premium increases for the sake of keeping members on their rolls -- particularly not while they are under pressure from Wall Street over what it sees as their disappointing earnings.
Article here
And let's not forget how AHIP and CBO are working together to "bend the curve" on health care by setting up a comparative effectiveness institute run by government bureaucrats....
