Category Archives: Out of Network

This Is One Anxiety We Should Eliminate for the Coronavirus Outbreak

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Coronavirus, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Insurance Industry, Health Policy, High Deductible Health Plans, High Drug Prices, High Premiums, High Prices, Out of Network, Out of Pocket Expenses, Out-of-Network, Pandemic, Surprise Bills, Underinsured, Uninsured • Leave a comment

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A patient can do everything right and still face substantial surprise medical bills.

In his recent Oval Office speech, President Trump pledged that Americans won’t receive surprise bills for their coronavirus testing.

The goal is good; we need people who are lightly symptomatic to be tested without fear of high personal costs. But it was an empty promise. Unless swift action is taken, surprise bills are coming. And they could exacerbate a public health crisis that is already threatening to spiral out of control.

As demand for coronavirus testing surges and beds start to fill with the sick, hospitals and clinics will roll out contingency plans that call on any available resources in their communities. Test samples will be sent to whichever private laboratories have capacity, patients will be transferred from overloaded hospitals to less-crowded locations and physicians and nurses will make greater use of telemedicine.

Emergency rooms will be slammed with visits from the worried well and the dangerously sick alike. College students are already being sent home and will seek treatment far from the universities that offer them health insurance.

All of this will be chaotic.

To their credit, health insurers recognize the need to eliminate out-of-pocket spending that might discourage people from seeking care. At a meeting earlier this week with Vice President Mike Pence, they publicly committed to eliminating deductibles and co-pays for coronavirus testing. The federal government is also taking some needed steps to eliminate or ease cost-sharing.

But insurance companies aren’t the ones sending surprise bills. They’re coming from private labs and emergency-room doctors and other providers of health care services — and they weren’t at Vice President Pence’s meeting.

A patient with insurance through work or the health-insurance exchanges can be surprise-billed when she seeks medical care at a hospital or clinic that’s in her insurance “network” — but then receives medical care from a person or an institution that’s outside the network.

That out-of-network provider will first send a bill to the patient’s insurer. But if the insurer doesn’t pay the full amount, the provider may bill the patient directly for the remaining balance. Because the provider is basically free to name its own price, these surprise bills can be wildly inflated.

In a coronavirus pandemic, a patient can do everything right and still face substantial surprise bills. Take someone who fears that she may have contracted Covid-19. After self-quarantining for a week, she develops severe shortness of breath. Her partner rushes her to the nearest in-network emergency room. But she’s actually seen by an out-of-network doctor — who may soon send her a hefty bill for the visit.

Matters get worse if the in-network hospital is approaching capacity and the patient is healthy enough to be sent to a hospital across town with spare beds. If the second hospital is outside her insurance network, she could potentially receive a second surprise bill. A third could come from the ambulance that transfers her — it too might not be in-network, and no one will think to check during a crisis. She could get a fourth surprise bill if her coronavirus tests are sent to an out-of-network lab. And so on.

Even in normal times, patients with private insurance receive roughly one surprise bill for every 10 inpatient hospital admissions.

These are not normal times.

Federal law currently provides little protection. The Affordable Care Act does cap an individual’s out-of-pocket spending — but the cap only applies to in-network care. For surprise bills, the sky is the limit.

Reputable providers will appreciate that now is not the time for price gouging. But many won’t and will seek to exploit people’s medical needs for financial gain, much as they did before the coronavirus began to spread. They may calculate that can collect enough money charging exorbitant fees for out-of-network services — and still make it to an airport ahead of a mob carrying pitchforks and torches.

We need more than gauzy commitments from the president. We need a law to ban bills incurred from out-of-network providers for medical care associated with the coronavirus outbreak. Unless that commitment is ironclad, people may not believe it. And if they don’t believe it, they won’t get tested.

To date, Congress — cowed by a furious public relations campaign led by private equity and specialty physicians — has been unable to pass a law banning routine surprise billing. Though Congress has moved closer to a watered-down deal in recent months, neither the House nor the Senate has actually passed a bill.

The coronavirus should refocus Congress’s attention. At a minimum, the legislature should quickly pass a temporary measure to limit out-of-network charges for coronavirus testing and treatment.

In the meantime, states can take action. About half have already passed surprise-billing laws, including California and New York, two of the hardest-hit states. But the laws in many states are patchy: Some cover only emergency room care, others don’t contain a legal mechanism for cutting back on excessive bills, and none are tailored for the current outbreak.

Already, reports of people who have received eye-popping bills for coronavirus testing or emergency room visits are circulating. As these stories proliferate, people will become even more reluctant to get tested or treated when they should. That will obscure the spread of the virus, complicate efforts to adopt measures for social distancing, and lead to unnecessary deaths.

It’s a national disgrace that the United States didn’t ban surprise bills in a time of relative prosperity and security. It could become a public health calamity if we do not end them in a world with coronavirus.

 

 

 

UnitedHealth likely to keep squeezing physician staffing firms

Posted on by • Posted in Anesthesia, Balance Billing, Emergency Care, Emergency Room Staffing, Health Insurance Industry, Market Consolidation, Market Power, Market Share, Neonatology, Obstetrics, Out of Network, Out of Pocket Expenses, Out-of-Network, Private Equity, Surprise Bills, Venture Capital • Leave a comment

https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/unitedhealth-likely-to-keep-squeezing-physician-staffing-firms/573679/

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The nation’s largest private insurer has been terminating its contracts with physician staffing firms in a bid to extract lower prices, part of a years-long pattern analysts say could spur other payers to follow.

UnitedHealthcare contends it is simply trying to curb the rising cost of healthcare by driving out high-cost providers that charge far more than the median rate in its network. The payer said it had hoped to keep these firms in network “at rates that reflect fair market prices,” a UnitedHealthcare spokesperson told Healthcare Dive.

The most recent action targeted Mednax, a firm that provides specialty services including anesthesia, neonatology and high-risk obstetrics in both urban and rural areas. United cut Mednax contracts in four states, pushing those providers out of network, potentially putting patients at risk of balance bills.

United also recently canceled its in-network contracts with U.S. Anesthesia Partners in Texas, starting in April, which caused Moody’s to change its outlook to negative for the provider group because the contracts represent 10% of its annual consolidated revenue.

These latest moves to end relationships with certain physician staffing firms seem to have escalated in recent years, Sarah Kahn, a credit analyst for S&P Global, told Healthcare Dive.

Since the insurer’s 2018 tussle with ER staffing firm Envision, “it’s sort of ramped up and become more aggressive and more abrupt and more pervasive,” Kahn said of the contract disputes.

 

United said the volume of negotiations it’s involved in has not changed in recent years, and added that it expects to renegotiate the same amount of contracts in 2020 that it did in 2019. However, United pointed a finger at a small number of physician staffing firms, backed by private equity, that are attempting to apply pressure on United to preserve the same high rates.

Private equity firms have been increasingly interested in healthcare over the past few years, accelerating acquisitions of medical practices from 2013 to 2016. Private equity acquired 355 physician practices, representing 1,426 sites of care and more than 5,700 physicians over that time frame, according to recent research in JAMA. The firms had a particular focus on anesthesiology with 69 practices acquired, followed by emergency physicians at 43.

Mednax is a publicly traded company. But Envision is owned by investment firm KKR; TeamHealth is owned by private equity firm Blackstone; and U.S. Anesthesia Partners is backed by Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe.

 

Proposed legislation around surprise billing may be influencing United’s actions, Kailash Chhaya, vice president and senior analyst at Moody’s, told Healthcare Dive. Congress has been weighing legislation that seeks to eliminate surprise billing, mainly through two vehicles, either using benchmark rates or arbitration.

If Congress ultimately decides on a bill that uses benchmark rates, or ties reimbursement for out-of-network providers to a benchmark rate (or average), it would benefit insurers like United to lower its average rate for certain services, Chhaya said. One way to do that is to end relationships with high-cost providers.

“It would help payers like UnitedHealth if that benchmark rate is low,” Chhaya said.

In late 2018, United threatened to drop Envision from its network, alleging the firm’s rates were responsible for driving up healthcare costs, according to a letter the payer sent hundreds of hospitals across the country. United and Envision eventually agreed to terms, but United seemed to outmuscle Envision as the deal secured “materially lower payment rates for Envision” that resulted in lower earnings, S&P Global analysts wrote in a recent report.

In 2019, United began terminating its contracts with TeamHealth, which has a special focus on emergency medicine. The terminations affect two-thirds of TeamHealth’s contracts through July 1. The squeeze from United caused Moody’s to also change Team Health’s outlook to negative as an eventual agreement would likely mean lower reimbursement and lower profitability for company, the ratings agency said.

“They’re trying to lower their payments to providers. Period,” David Peknay, director at S&P Global, told Healthcare Dive.​

 

Data shows prices — not usage — is driving healthcare spending. Physician staffing firms are frequently used for ER services and the ER and outpatient surgery experienced the largest growth in spending between 2014 and 2018, according to data from the Health Care Cost Institute.

United said it had been negotiating with TeamHealth since 2017 and does not believe TeamHealth should be paid significantly more than other in-network ER doctors for the same services. United alleges its median rate for chest pains is $340. But if a TeamHealth doctor provides the care it charges $1,508.​

“As Team Health continues to see more aggressive and inappropriate behavior by payors to either reduce, delay, or deny payments, we have increased our investment in legal resources to address specific situations where we believe payor behavior is inappropriate or unlawful,” according to a statement provided to Healthcare Dive.

TeamHealth said it will not balance bill patients in the interim.

 

The pressure from payers, particularly United, is unlikely to relent. The payer insures more than 43 million people in the U.S. through its commercial and public plans.

“I don’t think anyone is safe from such abrupt terminations,” Kahn said. However, United disputes the characterization of abruptly terminating contracts and says in many cases it has been negotiating with providers to no avail.

Likely targets in the future may include firms with a focus on emergency services, which tend to be high-cost areas, S&P’s analysts said. In their latest report, Kahn and Peknay pointed to The Schumacher Group, which is the third-largest player in emergency staffing services. However, it commands a market share of less than 10%, far less than its rivals Envision and TeamHealth.

Smaller firms may not be able to weather the pressure as effectively as very large staffing organizations.

For those smaller groups, it may be wise for them “to sit tight on their cash or prepare from some pressure,” Kahn said.

Although some believe it may influence other payers to follow suit, Dean Ungar, vice president and senior analyst with Moody’s, said United may be uniquely placed to exert this pressure because it has its own group of providers it can use and considerable scale.

“They are better positioned to play hardball,” Ungar said.

 

 

 

 

Consolidation increasing stakes for payer-provider contract disputes, study finds

Posted on by • Posted in Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Insurance Industry, Health Policy, Health System, Market Consolidation, Market Failure, Market Power, Market Uncertainty, Out of Network, Out of Pocket Expenses, Underinsured • Leave a comment

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/payer-issues/consolidation-increasing-stakes-for-payer-provider-contract-disputes-study-finds.html?utm_medium=email

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As more providers and insurers consolidate, the chances that both sides will run into disagreements over their in-network contracts have heightened, according to a report from the Center on Health Insurance Reforms from the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. 

For the report, researchers reviewed insurance laws across six states, based on geographic diversity and recent high-profile payer-provider conflicts that took place there: California, Georgia, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas. Some high-profile conflicts in the states include UnitedHealthcare and Houston Methodist; Pittsburgh-based Highmark Health and UPMC; Cigna and San Francisco-based Dignity Health; Cigna and Asheville, N.C.-based Mission Hospital; and Cigna and Irving, Texas-based Christus Health.

In interviews with regulators and insurers, researchers found both agreed that the more providers and payers consolidate, the higher the stakes for contract disputes. This will expose more consumers to care disruptions and higher out-of-pocket costs, they said. Several regulators warned that a greater number of high-profile contract disputes will take place in the future. 

State officials and insurers offered several recommendations for improving the patient experience through contract disputes, including providing members with advanced notice of possible contract termination and requiring insurers to hold their enrollees harmless if they can’t access necessary care elsewhere.

 

Cartoon – I can’t afford that diagnosis

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Affordability, Cartoon, Health Insurance Benefit Design, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Insurance Industry, Health Policy, High Deductible Health Plans, High Premiums, Market Consolidation, Market Failure, Market Power, Out of Network, Out of Pocket Expenses, Out-of-Network, Underinsured, Uninsured • Leave a comment

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Cartoon – We found the Problem

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Cartoon, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Insurance Industry, Health Policy, High Deductible Health Plans, High Premiums, Out of Network, Out of Pocket Expenses, Out-of-Network, Underinsured, Uninsured • Leave a comment

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For 2020, California Goes Big On Health Care

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Affordability, Generic Drugs, Health Policy, High Drug Prices, Homelessness, Medicaid, Mental Health, Out of Network, Out of Pocket Expenses, Out-of-Network, Pharmaceutical Industry, Social Determinants of Health, Surprise Bills, Tobacco Industry • Leave a comment

https://khn.org/news/for-2020-california-goes-big-on-health-care/

https://www.comstocksmag.com/kaiser-health-news/2020-california-goes-big-health-care

California is known for progressive everything, including its health care policies, and, just a few weeks into 2020, state leaders aren’t disappointing.

The politicians’ health care bills and budget initiatives are heavy on ideas and dollars — and on opposition from powerful industries. They put California, once again, at the forefront.

The proposals would lower prescription drug costs, increase access to health coverage, and restrict and tax vaping. But most lawmakers agree that homelessness will dominate the agenda, including proposals to get people into housing while treating some accompanying physical and mental health problems.

“This budget doubles down on the war on unaffordability — from taking on health care costs and having the state produce our own generic drugs to expanding the use of state properties to build housing quickly,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a letter to the legislature, which accompanied the $222.2 billion budget proposal he unveiled last Friday. About a third of that money would be allocated to health and human services programs.

But even with a Democratic supermajority in the legislature, these proposals aren’t a slam-dunk. “There are other factors that come into play, like interest groups with strong presence in the Capitol,” including Big Pharma and hospitals, said Shannon McConville, a senior researcher at the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.

Drug Pricing

Newsom’s plan to create a state generic drug label is perhaps his boldest health care proposal in this year’s budget, as it would make California the first state to enter the drug-manufacturing business. It may also be his least concrete.

Newsom wants the state to contract with one or more generics manufacturers to make drugs that would be available to Californians at lower prices. Newsom’s office provided little detail about how this would work or which drugs would be produced. The plan’s cost and potential savings are also unspecified. (Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, proposed a similar plan at the federal level.)

Because the generics market is already competitive and generic drugs make up a small portion of overall drug spending, a state generic-drug offering would likely result in only modest savings, said Geoffrey Joyce, director of health policy at USC’s Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics.

However, it could make a difference for specific drugs such as insulin, he said, which nearly doubled in price from 2012 to 2016. “It would reduce that type of price gouging,” he said.

Representatives of Big Pharma said they’re more concerned about a Newsom proposal to establish a single market for drug pricing in the state. Under this system, drug manufacturers would have to bid to sell their medications in California, and would have to offer prices at or below prices offered to any other state or country.

Californians could lose access to existing treatments and groundbreaking drugs, warned Priscilla VanderVeer, vice president for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industry’s lobbying arm.

This proposal could “let the government decide what drugs patients are going to get,” she said. “When the governor sets an artificially low price for drugs, that means there will be less money to invest in innovation.”

Newsom’s drug pricing proposals build on his executive order from last year directing the state to negotiate drug prices for the roughly 13 million enrollees of Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program for low-income residents. He also ordered a study of how state agencies could band together — and, eventually, with private purchasers such as health plans — to buy prescription drugs in bulk.

 

Homelessness

California has the largest homeless population in the nation, estimated at more than 151,000 people in 2019, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. About 72% of the state’s homeless slept outside or in cars rather than in shelters or temporary housing.

Newsom has asked for $1.4 billion in the 2020-21 state budget for homelessness, most of which would go to housing and health care. For instance, $695 million would boost health care and social services for homeless people via Medi-Cal. The money would fund programs such as recuperative care for homeless people who need a place to stay after they’ve been discharged from the hospital, and rental assistance if a person’s homelessness is tied to high medical costs.

A separate infusion of $24.6 million would go to the Department of State Hospitals for a pilot program to keep some people with mental health needs out of state hospitals and in community programs and housing.

 

Surprise Bills

California has some of the strongest protections against surprise medical bills in the nation, but millions of residents remain vulnerable to exorbitant charges because the laws don’t cover all insurance plans.

Surprise billing occurs when a patient receives care from a hospital or provider outside of their insurance network, and then the doctor or hospital bills the patient for the amount insurance didn’t cover.

Last year, state Assembly member David Chiu (D-San Francisco) introduced legislation that would have limited how much hospitals could charge privately insured patients for out-of-network emergency services. The bill would have required hospitals to work directly with health plans on billing, leaving the patients responsible only for their in-network copayments, coinsurance and deductibles.

But he pulled the measure because of strong opposition from hospitals, which criticized it as a form of rate setting.

Chiu said he plans to resume the fight this year, likely with amendments that have not been finalized. But hospitals remain opposed to the provision that would cap charges, a provision that Chiu says is essential.

“We continue to fully support banning surprise medical bills, but we believe it can be done without resorting to rate setting,” said Jan Emerson-Shea, a spokesperson for the California Hospital Association.

 

Medi-Cal For Unauthorized Immigrants

California is the first state to offer full Medicaid benefits to income-eligible residents up to age 26, regardless of their immigration status.

Now Democrats are proposing another first: California could become the first to open Medicaid to adults ages 65 and up who are in the country illegally.

Even though Medicaid is a joint state-federal program, California must fund full coverage of unauthorized immigrants on its own.

Newsom set aside $80.5 million in his 2020-21 proposed budget to cover about 27,000 older adults in the first year. His office estimated ongoing costs would be about $350 million a year.

Republicans vocally oppose such proposals. “Expanding such benefits would make it more difficult to provide health care services for current Medi-Cal enrollees,” state Sen. Patricia Bates (R-Laguna Niguel) said in a prepared statement.

 

Vaping

Dozens of California cities and counties have restricted the sale of flavored tobacco products in an effort to curb youth vaping.

But last year, state legislators punted on a statewide ban on flavored tobacco sales after facing pressure from the tobacco industry.

Now, state Sen. Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo) is back with his proposed statewide flavor ban, which may have more momentum this year. Since last summer, a mysterious vaping illness has sickened more than 2,600 people nationwide, leading to 60 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In California, at least 199 people have fallen ill and four have died.

Hill’s bill would ban retail sales of flavored products related to electronic cigarettes, e-hookahs and e-pipes, including menthol flavor. It also would prohibit the sale of all flavored smokable and nonsmokable tobacco products, such as cigars, cigarillos, pipe tobacco, chewing tobacco, snuff and tobacco edibles.

Newsom has also called for a new tax on e-cigarette products — $2 for each 40 milligrams of nicotine, on top of already existing tobacco taxes on e-cigarettes. The tax would have to be approved by the legislature as part of the budget process and could face heavy industry opposition.

Tobacco-related bills are usually heard in the Assembly Governmental Organization Committee, “and that is where a lot of tobacco legislation, quite frankly, dies,” said Assembly member Jim Wood (D-Healdsburg), who supports vaping restrictions.

 

 

 

 

Private insurance is health care’s pot of gold

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Affordability, Bankruptcy, Cost Management, Cost Reduction, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Insurance Industry, Health Policy, High Deductible Health Plans, Out of Network, Out of Pocket Expenses, Status Quo, Underinsured • Leave a comment

https://www.axios.com/jp-morgan-2020-private-health-insurance-prices-costs-1e92f969-bffc-4584-a3c9-e8c4072b5144.html

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Private health insurance is a conduit for exploding health care spending, and there’s no end in sight.

The big picture: Most politicians defend this status quo, even though prices are soaring. And as the industry’s top executives and lobbyists gathered this week in San Francisco, some nodded to concerns over affordability — but then went on to tell investors how they plan to keep the money flowing.

 

Where it stands: More than 160 million Americans get private insurance through an employer or on their own, and per-person spending in that market rose by almost 7% in 2018, the highest annual growth rate in 14 years.

  • “Prices are definitely going up,” Owen Tripp, CEO of health tech startup Grand Rounds, told me this week during the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference.
  • His company’s vast amount of commercial health data shows big increases in what companies are spending on hospitals, doctors, specialty drugs, devices and out-of-network services.

 

What they’re saying: Many in the industry admit price inflation has been hammering the commercial markets for years.

  • “Cost per unit is the primary driver,” Cigna CEO David Cordani said. He did not mention the exploding costs of administering health insurance.
  • One hospital system at the conference acknowledged that “the number one cause of personal bankruptcy is our industry” — before going on to tell investors about the hospital’s strong margins.

 

Multiple hospital executives claimed they charge commercial plans higher prices to make up for the lower rates they get from Medicare and Medicaid.

  • “Every health system I know of loses money on every Medicaid and every Medicare patient,” Amy Compton-Phillips, a top clinical executive at Providence St. Joseph Health, told me.
  • But the evidence overwhelmingly shows that hospitals’ explanation doesn’t hold water.

 

Drug spending has risen at a slower rate than hospital and physician spending.

  • But in the commercial market, drug companies also have tripled their spending on programs that cover all or part of patients’ out-of-pocket costs, then bill insurers for the full freight.
  • “It’s an intriguing theory,” said Stephen Ubl, CEO of PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry’s main lobbying group. “But I would be shocked if we were a significant contributor” to the increased private spending.

 

The bottom line: The private market is the main pot of money that everyone is chasing at the J.P. Morgan conference, and most in the industry don’t see the ballooning spending within that market as a problem.

 

 

 

 

The health care debate we ought to be having

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Cost Management, Health Policy, Health System, High Deductible Health Plans, High Drug Prices, High Premiums, High Prices, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Market Consolidation, Market Failure, Market Power, Medicare, Medicare for All, Out of Network, Out of Pocket Expenses, Pharmaceutical Industry, Private Equity, Status Quo • Leave a comment

https://www.axios.com/what-matters-2020-health-care-costs-7139f124-d4f7-44a1-afc2-6d653ceec77d.html

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Americans worry a lot about how to get and pay for good health care, but the 2020 presidential candidates are barely talking about what’s at the root of these problems: Almost every incentive in the U.S. health care system is broken.

Why it matters: President Trump and most of the Democratic field are minimizing the hard conversations with voters about why health care eats up so much of each paycheck and what it would really take to change things.

  • Instead, the public debate focuses on ideas like how best to cover the uninsured and the relative virtue of health care “choice.”

The U.S. spent $3.6 trillion on health care last year, and almost every part of the system is pushing its costs up, not down.

 

Hospitals collect the biggest piece of the health care pie, at about $1 trillion per year.

  • Their incentive is to fill beds — to send as many bills as possible, for as much as possible.
  • Big hospital systems are buying up smaller ones, as well as physician practices, to reduce competition and charge higher prices.
  • And hospitals have resisted efforts to shift toward a system that pays for quality, rather than volume.

 

Drug companies, meanwhile, are the most profitable part of the health care industry.

  • Small biotech companies usually shoulder the risk of developing new drugs.
  • Big Pharma companies then buy those products, market them aggressively and develop a fortress of patents to keep competition at bay as long as possible.

 

The money bonanza is enticing some nontraditional players into the health care world.

 

Insurers do want to keep costs down — but many of their methods are deeply unpopular.

  • Making us pay more out of pocket and putting tighter restrictions on which doctors we can see create real and immediate headaches for patients.
  • That makes insurers the most convenient punching bag for politicians.

 

The frustrating reality: Democrats’ plans are engaging in the debate about possible solutions more than the candidates themselves.

  • It’s a tacit acknowledgment of two realities: That controlling the cost of care is imperative, and that talking about taking money away from doctors and hospitals is a big political risk.

 

What they’re saying: The top 2020 Democrats have actually released “insanely aggressive” cost control ideas, says Larry Levitt, executive vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “But they don’t talk about that a lot.”

  • Medicare for All, the plan endorsed by Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, would sharply reduce spending on doctors and hospitals by eliminating private insurance and paying rates closer to Medicare’s. Estimates range from about $380 billion to nearly $600 billion in savings each year.
  • Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg have proposed an optional Medicare-like insurance plan, which anyone could buy into. It would pay providers less than private insurance, with the hopes of putting competitive pressure on private plans’ rates.
  • The savings there would be smaller than Medicare for All’s, but those plans are still significantly more ambitious than the Affordable Care Act or most of the proposals that came before it.

 

Yes, but: The health care industry has blanketed Iowa with ads, and is prepared to spend millions more, to defend the very profitable status quo.

  • The argument is simple: Reframe the big-picture debate about costs as a threat to your doctor or your hospital. It’s an easy playbook that both parties, and the industry, know well. And it usually works.

 

The bottom line: “Voters want their health care costs reduced, but that doesn’t mean they would necessarily support what it would take to make that happen,” Levitt said.

 

 

 

 

How the Health Insurance Industry (and I) Invented the ‘Choice’ Talking Point

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, Choice, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Insurance Industry, Health Policy, Out of Network, Out of Pocket Expenses, Status Quo • Leave a comment

It was always misleading. Now Democrats are repeating it.

There’s a dangerous talking point being repeated in the Democratic primary for president that could affect the survival of millions of people, and the finances of even more. This is partly my fault.

When the candidates discuss health care, you’re bound to hear some of them talk about consumer “choice.” If the nation adopts systemic health reform, this idea goes, it would restrict the ability of Americans to choose their plans or doctors, or have a say in their care.

It’s a good little talking point, in that it makes the idea of changing the current system sound scary and limiting. The problem? It’s a P.R. concoction. And right now, somewhere in their plush corporate offices, some health care industry executives are probably beside themselves with glee, drinking a toast to their public relations triumph.

I should know: I was one of them.

To my everlasting regret, I played a hand in devising this deceptive talking point about choice when I worked in various communications roles for a leading health insurer between 1993 and 2008, ultimately serving as vice president for corporate communications. Now I want to come clean by explaining its origin story, and why it’s both factually inaccurate and a political ploy.

Those of us in the insurance industry constantly hustled to prevent significant reforms because changes threatened to eat into our companies’ enormous profits. We were told by our opinion research firms and messaging consultants that when we promoted the purported benefits of the status quo that we should talk about the concept of “choice”: It polled well in focus groups of average Americans (and was encouraged by the work of Frank Luntz, the P.R. guru who literally wrote the book on how the Republican Party should communicate with Americans). As instructed, I used the word “choice” frequently when drafting talking points.

But those of us who held senior positions for the big insurers knew that one of the huge vulnerabilities of the system is its lack of choice. In the current system, Americans cannot, in fact, pick their own doctors, specialists or hospitals — at least, not without incurring huge “out of network” bills.

Not only does the current health care system deny you choice within the details of your plans, it also fails to provide many options for the plan itself. Most working Americans must select from a limited list made by their company’s chosen insurance provider (usually a high-deductible plan or a higher-deductible plan). What’s more, once that choice is made, there are many restrictions around keeping it. You can lose coverage if your company changes its plan, or if you change jobs, or if you turn 26 and leave your parents’ plan, among other scenarios.

This presented a real problem for us in the industry. Well aware that we were losing the “choice” argument, my industry colleagues spent millions on lobbying, advertising and spin doctors — all intended to muddy the issue so Americans might believe that reform would somehow provide “less choice.” Recently, the industry launched a campaign called “My Care, My Choice” aimed in part at convincing Americans that they have choice now — and that government reform would restrict their freedom. That group has been spending large sums on advertising in Iowa during this presidential race.

This isn’t the first time the industry has made “choice” a big talking point as it fights health reform. Soon after the Affordable Care Act was passed a decade ago, insurers formed the Choice and Competition Coalition and pushed states not to create insurance exchanges with better plans.

What’s different now is that it’s the Democrats parroting the misleading “choice” talking point — and even using it as a weapon against one another. Back in my days working in insurance P.R., this would have stunned me. It’s why I believe my former colleagues are celebrating today.

The truth, of course, is that Americans now have little “choice” when it comes to managing their health care. Most can’t choose their own plan or how long they retain it, or even use it to select the doctor or hospital they prefer. But some reforms being discussed this election, such as “Medicare for all,” would provide these basic freedoms to users. In other words, the proposed reforms offer more choice than the status quo, not less.

My advice to voters is that if politicians tell you they oppose reforming the health care system because they want to preserve your “choice” as a consumer, they don’t know what they’re talking about or they’re willfully ignoring the truth. Either way, the insurance industry is delighted.

I would know.

 

 

Sutter Health to pay $575M to settle antitrust case

Posted on by • Posted in Attorney General, Competition, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Lawsuit, Lawsuit Settlement, Market Consolidation, Market Exclusivity, Market Power, Monopoly, Monopoly Behavior, Out of Network, Out of Pocket Expenses, Out-of-Network, Price Regulation, Pricing • Leave a comment

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/legal-regulatory-issues/sutter-health-to-pay-575m-to-settle-antitrust-case.html?origin=CFOE&utm_source=CFOE&utm_medium=email

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Sutter Health, a 24-hospital system based in Sacramento, Calif., has agreed to pay $575 million to settle an antitrust case brought by employers and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.

The settlement resolves allegations that Sutter Health violated California’s antitrust laws by using its market power to overcharge patients and employer-funded health plans. The class members alleged Sutter Health’s inflated prices led to $756 million in overcharges, according to Bloomberg Law.

Under the terms of the settlement, Sutter will pay $575 million to employers, unions and others covered under the class action. The health system will also be required to make several other changes, including limiting what it charges patients for out-of-network services, halting measurers that deny patients access to lower-cost health plans, and improving access to pricing, quality and cost information, according to a Dec. 20 release from Mr. Becerra.

To ensure Sutter is complying with the terms of the settlement, the health system will be required to cooperate with a court-approved compliance monitor for at least 10 years.

Mr. Becerra said the settlement, which he called “a game changer for restoring competition,” is a warning to other organizations.

“This first-in-the-nation comprehensive settlement should send a clear message to the markets: if you’re looking to consolidate for any reason other than efficiency that delivers better quality for a lower price, think again. The California Department of Justice is prepared to protect consumers and competition, especially when it comes to healthcare,” he said.

A Sutter spokesperson told The New York Times that the settlement did not acknowledge wrongdoing. “We were able to resolve this matter in a way that enables Sutter Health to maintain our integrated network and ability to provide patients with access to affordable, high-quality care,” said Flo Di Benedetto, Sutter’s senior vice president and general counsel, in a statement to The Times.

The settlement must be approved by the court. A hearing on the settlement is scheduled for Feb. 25, 2020.