July 2008

Grand Rounds at Edwin Leap

by Louise July 31, 2008

Since health insurance is our niche, I tend to focus on health insurance related articles when I highlight entries for the Colorado Health Insurance Insider. But this week some posts that caught my eye had nothing to do with health insurance at all. I just liked them, and thought you might [...]

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Freedom Of Choice In Health Care

by Louise July 30, 2008

[...] We like to think that we have a free market health care system and can make our own choices about our care and our health insurance. But for a Colorado resident without an employer-sponsored health insurance policy, and with pre-existing conditions that put private health insurance out of reach, Cover Colorado is the only real option for health insurance.

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A Huge Fine For HealthMarkets

by Louise July 29, 2008

[...] HealthMarkets has been hit with a $20 million fine after a three year investigation led by insurance commissioners in 29 states, including Colorado. Colorado will get $650,000 in the settlement, which found that HealthMarkets was negligent in both front- and back-end issues – including agent training and disclosure to consumers, as well as the handling of claims and complaints.

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Cavalcade Of Risk

by Louise July 29, 2008

[...] Everyone needs health insurance, except maybe Warren Buffet. I’ve never had any medical issues at all, but I sure as heck need health insurance. Tomorrow might be the day I trip over a sidewalk crack and break my neck, or find a lump where there’s not supposed to be one. Individual health insurance guards against possible future risk, rather than known current risk. The trade off is that it’s a lot less expensive than guaranteed issue policies.

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Attracting More Docs To Primary Care

by Louise July 28, 2008

[...] private health insurance carriers and Medicare. It’s much more profitable to see a patient for 12 minutes and write a prescription (and repeat this process all day long) than it is to spend 45 minutes with the patient, putting together all the pieces of his health puzzle. A Colorado Springs Business Journal article describes the challenges faced by doctors who choose to spend time with their patients rather than squeezing as many patients as possible into a day.

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Individual Health Insurance Vs Government Intervention

by Louise July 25, 2008

[...] regulations would also be eliminated. For example, state laws that mandate coverage for mammograms or hospital stays after childbirth could be ignored at will.” I’m not sure what they’re referring to here, as there are plenty of mandates on individual policies in Colorado, and I haven’t heard anything about individual health insurance carriers being able to ignore them.

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Help Brainstorm the Perfect Health Care System

by Jay July 24, 2008

To keep running with some ideas started on this blog about how the best health care system should be run, I’ve created a wiki page on the Colorado Health Insurance Wiki for mass collaboration on the issue (by “mass,” I’m hoping a few more people will assist with the ideas Don and I have set [...]

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Electronic Prescription Transmittal

by Louise July 24, 2008

We used to have our Colorado health insurance clients fill out paper health insurance applications. Then we would check the application to make sure nothing was missed, and send it to the health insurance carrier. From there, the underwriters would enter the information into a computer, calling us along the way if they were unable to read an applicant’s handwriting, or [...]

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Health Wonk Review at Health Business Blog

by Louise July 24, 2008

The Health Wonk Review is up at Health Business Blog. The Health Care Blog has an astute commentary on the state of the nation and how lobbying by special interest groups basically eliminates the possibility for meaningful reform in health care and a range of other issues. There’s a great graphic about obesity around the [...]

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