News and Commentary
News and relevant information from nHealth
Health Care Reform: Empower Consumers
Given the colossal health care reform legislation that is zigzagging its way through Congress, it would be difficult to imagine there could be anything missing. After all, the bills in the House and Sen ate have more pages than all seven Harry Potter books combined -- more than 4,000 pages between the two of them.
Yet, one of the most critical elements needed to overhaul our current system is conspicuously absent: the patient as consumer.
Rather than a proposed solution that relies on complicated new mandates, regulations, and government oversight, we need a far simpler, market-based and common-sense approach, one that businesses large and small are already discovering in growing numbers.
By empowering patients as value-driven consumers of health care, we have the potential to transform our nation's health care system in ways that are far more economical and less onerous than either of the bills created on Capitol Hill.
By moving away from the decades-old co-pay, managed-care system of HMOs and PPOs -- a critical shift that neither congressional bill addresses -- we can remake health care in this country, making it more affordable, accessible, and manageable for virtually everyone.
Through consumer-driven health plans (CDHPs), especially when paired with a Health Savings Account (HSA), businesses and individuals are finding that when they have more control of the health care dollar, they can bend the cost curve down.
The current co-pay approach has virtually destroyed the ability for us as consumers to make any rational value judgment on any of our health care decisions. By insulating us from any need to be engaged in the cost, quality, or value of the health care services we consume, we have unwittingly become the drivers of the runaway cost of health care. And so, while consumers may appreciate the comfort of paying a $25 co-pay for an annual checkup, the ever-growing price tag on their monthly insurance premiums makes this approach unsustainable.
Continue reading the full article at Richmond Times Dispatch by Clicking Here
Healthcare Solutions Summit Round-up
We appreciate your support of the 2009 Healthcare Solutions Summit. Consumer-driven healthcare is a REAL solution to the health insurance challenges we face today. Our consumer-driven program is revolutionizing the way consumers manage their own healthcare by reducing health insurance premiums for businesses and giving the consumer the opportunity to direct their own care. We’re dedicated to creating competition in the market in order to offer solutions that save companies money, let employees take control of their own healthcare through Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), and lower insurance premiums.
We are thrilled and fortunate to have had such nationally-known healthcare experts as Roy Ramthun and Greg Scandlen speak at the Healthcare Solutions Summit. nHealth is at the center of making Consumer Driven Health Plans (CDHPs) mainstream. Each day more companies are adopting the nHealth approach, making consumer-driven healthcare the total solution for their company and employees. We believe that if you put money in the hands of the consumers, they will make the decisions that best fit their needs.
Feel free to download the Powerpoint slides or view the image gallery from the event. We hope to see you next time.
Click here to view the full presentation
Please watch for information on the 2010 Healthcare Solutions Summit programs coming soon.
Paul Kitchen
President and CEO
nHealth
GM Offers HSAs Using BofA As Preferred Custodian
Florida Blues Plan Goes HSA Total Replacement
The huge Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida plan will offer only an HSA product to employees next year in the latest sign that large employers, government workers and unions will be a major source of total replacement offerings in 2010. Employees have two HSA options: a $1,500 deductible with employees paying 10 percent co-insurance and a $2,500 deductible with 20 percent co-insurance.
Blues plans are already a major source of HSA backing, with the Minnesota Blues exploding statewide and several others following. Health reform changes like the repeal of the McCarran-Ferguson Act and state health exchanges, along with big increases in private insurance taxes, will move this market even faster.
This week General Motors finally announced that it will offer only HSAs to all of its pre-65 salaried employees. Retirees will be allowed to establish an HSA at a financial institution of their choosing. However, GM will pay administrative fees of HSAs that are set up with a Bank of America HSA account. The annual deductible will be $2,500 for individual coverage and $5,000 for family coverage. GM will also allocate $260 a month to retirees' health reimbursement arrangements but will halt those allocations when salaried retirees turn 65.
In 2010, salaried retirees with individual coverage will be allowed to contribute up to $3,050 to health savings accounts, while retirees with family coverage will be allowed to contribute $6,150 to an HSA. In addition, retirees age 55 and older will be allowed to contribute an additional $1,000 a year to their HSA in so-called catch-up contributions.The maximum annual out-of-pocket expense will be $3,500 for individuals and $7,000 for families. Co-insurance above the deductible is 20% for in-network and 40% out-of-network.
Union workers at GM are already in a VEBA based on an HRA.
Lifting the Veil on Pricing for Health Care
Web Sites Help Patients Shop for Medical Services; Cutting Surgery by $3,000
It's long been hard for healthcare consumers to learn how much doctor visits or hospital stays will cost them. That's now beginning to change, as a growing array of Web sites try to lift the veil on pricing.
The online resources come from insurers, government agencies, Internet companies and medical-care providers. The sites aren't perfect: Unlike online retailers that sell products such as televisions, the health sites can't typically give exact prices for medical procedures and services. Still, consumers can get a rough idea of typical costs in their area, and that can help them choose doctors and hospitals, budget for medical costs and sort out disputed bills.
John Rogers, a funeral-home owner in Frankfort, Ky., says he checked pricing on HealthcareBlueBook.com in June after a hospital told him it would charge a facility fee of about $4,200 for his wife's outpatient gastrointestinal surgery. The Web site suggested that a reasonable price would be closer to $1,300, based on what insurers paid facilities for such procedures in his region. Armed with that estimate, Mr. Rogers, who is uninsured, kept checking around until he found an outpatient surgery center that would charge $900. His wife's surgeon agreed to do the procedure there.
Mr. Rogers, 60 years old, says he thinks it's only fair that he should pay about the same price that insurers pay. But without tools to research the cost of treatment, "you have zero idea what it is worth, what is a fair price," he says.
Click here to read the full article
