Hello, and welcome to this edition of the Weekly Health Insurance News Roundup. The big news of the recently came from the American Medical Association. They began what they call the “Cure for Claims” campaign to help doctors gain more efficiency and transparency in dealing with health insurance claims. The AMA has also issued a “report card” which looks into the practices of several large health insurance companies in terms of claims processing efficiency.
First off, the “Cure for Claims” campaign was kicked off, and is meant to hold health insurance companies accountable for making the claims process more efficient, cost-effective and transparent. They also wish to empower physicians so they aren’t “at the mercy” of a chaotic payment system. The goal of the campaign, ultimately, is to make claims processing much less time consuming so that physicians may spend more time on actual patient care rather than paperwork. Some physicians said, for example, that they were so fed up with chasing insurance companies for moneys they were owed that they simply stopped and moved to different payment systems for the patients.
The AMA reports that inefficient processing of health insurance claims adds unnecessary costs to the health insurance industry, over $210 billion annually. The AMA also reports that doctors can spend up to fourteen percent of their total revenue to ensure accurate claims processing and payment. To help in that end, the AMA has issued a “report card” of sorts that looks at the claims processing efficiency and other factors of Medicare and several large health insurance providers, including Aetna, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, CIGNA, Coventry Health Care, Health Net, Humana and United Healthcare.
According to the report card, Medicare was most likely to deny a portion of a claim, followed by Aetna. Coventry has the quickest turnaround for a claim, only four days, while others ranged between ten and fourteen days. UnitedHealthcare had the lowest rate of contract compliance at sixty-two percent, compared with ninety-eight percent for Medicare and seventy-one percent for Aetna. These facts show that there is much room for improvement in our health insurance system, and hopefully that by the AMA bringing these facts to light will spurn the health insurance industry into action.
Moving on from that topic, a story in the Associated Press entitled, “Bernanke: Improving health care is critical challenge,” by Jeannine Aversa cites Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as stating that improving the health care system in this country is “one of the biggest challenges facing the country.” The more I read these articles every week and write this article myself, I’m inclined to agree.
Bernanke went on to state that challenges fall into three major areas. These include improving access to health care for nearly fifty million Americans, improving the quality of health care, and controlling costs. Bernanke went onto say that lawmakers should look at an “eclectic approach” rather than one single set of reforms to address all these problems at once. He urged policy makers to “not lose what is good” about the health care system,” but warned that the increasing costs of health care will but a bigger and bigger strain on the budgets of not only the government, but individuals as well. Bernanke said, “Per capita health care spending in the United States has increased at a faster rate than per capita income for a number of decades,” and that health care costs take up more of people’s income than food or shelter, and will only get worse if changes aren’t made.
This leads us to our final article, entitled, “Health insurance premiums rising faster than incomes,” by Jason G. Howe over at fosters.com. According to a study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the rising cost of insuring employees has led to a like increase in the cost of coverage for employees offering by their employers. The study also states that employees have seen their premiums increase ten times faster than their incomes. For example, on average, the cost of family coverage increased from $8,281 to $10,728 between 2001 and 2005, an increase of roughly $2,500. However, the median income for people who hold family polices only increased from $40,818 to $42,068 in between 2001 and 2005, an increase of only $1,250. The article says there is a clear connected between these rising costs and the rising amount of uninsured Americans.
Overall, it looks like a lot of work needs to be done in terms of offering affordable health insurance and accessible health care, as well as giving doctors an easier time of processing health insurance claims. In my own personal opinion, the more I read these articles, in all honesty, the more and more I become in favor of a universal health insurance system. There seem to be so many problems, so many gaps in coverage, costs, expenses and so on that I can’t help but see our current health care system as broken.
This concludes our Weekly Health Insurance News Roundup. I hope you have found it enjoyable and informative, and I hope you have a safe, happy and healthy day.
Other Health Insurance News Options:
Return to Articles Page.
The AMA’s Health Insurers Report Card and The Challenges Faced by Those Wanting Affordable Health Insurance
Hello, and welcome to this edition of the Weekly Health Insurance News Roundup. The big news of the recently came from the American Medical Association. They began what they call the “Cure for Claims” campaign to help doctors gain more efficiency and transparency in dealing with health insurance claims. The AMA has also issued a “report card” which looks into the practices of several large health insurance companies in terms of claims processing efficiency.
First off, the “Cure for Claims” campaign was kicked off, and is meant to hold health insurance companies accountable for making the claims process more efficient, cost-effective and transparent. They also wish to empower physicians so they aren’t “at the mercy” of a chaotic payment system. The goal of the campaign, ultimately, is to make claims processing much less time consuming so that physicians may spend more time on actual patient care rather than paperwork. Some physicians said, for example, that they were so fed up with chasing insurance companies for moneys they were owed that they simply stopped and moved to different payment systems for the patients.
The AMA reports that inefficient processing of health insurance claims adds unnecessary costs to the health insurance industry, over $210 billion annually. The AMA also reports that doctors can spend up to fourteen percent of their total revenue to ensure accurate claims processing and payment. To help in that end, the AMA has issued a “report card” of sorts that looks at the claims processing efficiency and other factors of Medicare and several large health insurance providers, including Aetna, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, CIGNA, Coventry Health Care, Health Net, Humana and United Healthcare.
According to the report card, Medicare was most likely to deny a portion of a claim, followed by Aetna. Coventry has the quickest turnaround for a claim, only four days, while others ranged between ten and fourteen days. UnitedHealthcare had the lowest rate of contract compliance at sixty-two percent, compared with ninety-eight percent for Medicare and seventy-one percent for Aetna. These facts show that there is much room for improvement in our health insurance system, and hopefully that by the AMA bringing these facts to light will spurn the health insurance industry into action.
Moving on from that topic, a story in the Associated Press entitled, “Bernanke: Improving health care is critical challenge,” by Jeannine Aversa cites Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as stating that improving the health care system in this country is “one of the biggest challenges facing the country.” The more I read these articles every week and write this article myself, I’m inclined to agree.
Bernanke went on to state that challenges fall into three major areas. These include improving access to health care for nearly fifty million Americans, improving the quality of health care, and controlling costs. Bernanke went onto say that lawmakers should look at an “eclectic approach” rather than one single set of reforms to address all these problems at once. He urged policy makers to “not lose what is good” about the health care system,” but warned that the increasing costs of health care will but a bigger and bigger strain on the budgets of not only the government, but individuals as well. Bernanke said, “Per capita health care spending in the United States has increased at a faster rate than per capita income for a number of decades,” and that health care costs take up more of people’s income than food or shelter, and will only get worse if changes aren’t made.
This leads us to our final article, entitled, “Health insurance premiums rising faster than incomes,” by Jason G. Howe over at fosters.com. According to a study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the rising cost of insuring employees has led to a like increase in the cost of coverage for employees offering by their employers. The study also states that employees have seen their premiums increase ten times faster than their incomes. For example, on average, the cost of family coverage increased from $8,281 to $10,728 between 2001 and 2005, an increase of roughly $2,500. However, the median income for people who hold family polices only increased from $40,818 to $42,068 in between 2001 and 2005, an increase of only $1,250. The article says there is a clear connected between these rising costs and the rising amount of uninsured Americans.
Overall, it looks like a lot of work needs to be done in terms of offering affordable health insurance and accessible health care, as well as giving doctors an easier time of processing health insurance claims. In my own personal opinion, the more I read these articles, in all honesty, the more and more I become in favor of a universal health insurance system. There seem to be so many problems, so many gaps in coverage, costs, expenses and so on that I can’t help but see our current health care system as broken.
This concludes our Weekly Health Insurance News Roundup. I hope you have found it enjoyable and informative, and I hope you have a safe, happy and healthy day.
Other Health Insurance News Options:
Return to Articles Page.