Good news for those applying to United HealthOne:
Beginning with applications received on March 24, 2011, the processing of credit card or EFT payment will not take place until the application is approved and issued.
It’s about time. It was tough to explain to clients “and yeah, they’re going to charge you before they’ve even made a decision.”
billing
Imaging And Primary Care Doctors
[…] When Jay hurt his knee a couple years ago, an MRI was done prior to surgery. We have an HSA qualified health insurance policy, and at the time our deductible was $3000. So we paid for the MRI ourselves, and it amounted to more than a third of the deductible. And that was after Humana reduced the bill to the network negotiated amount. MRIs have helped to make medicine a much more exact science, but they are not cheap.
It seems that any system that pays physicians – directly or indirectly – to order additional testing will end up with excessive testing, adding to the overall cost of health care. Even doctors with the best of intentions are likely to be swayed by the knowledge that they can boost their paychecks by adding a few MRIs here and there.
I believe that the number of tests a doctors orders should not impact his or her income. And it seems that adding more medical imaging facilities in primary care offices will only increase our already burgeoning health care costs […]
The Art And Science Of Choosing Providers
[…] Provider quality rankings are a piece of the puzzle for sure, but they’re not the only piece. I do think they will get more popular if health insurance carriers start actively encouraging patients to select from among the highest ranking providers. But there are other factors that go into choosing a provider that can’t be quantified on a spreadsheet or a graph.
Preventive Medicine And Primary Care Docs
[…] When we remove those factors, health insurance companies should compensate physicians based on experience, hours worked, and outcomes, rather than the number of specialized procedures performed. Maybe then preventive medicine wouldn’t have to be such a budget-buster for the health care system.
Health Wonk Review
Jason has done a great job with the Health Wonk Review over at the Healthcare Economist. The Colorado Health Insurance Insider article about possible Medicare reform is featured in the HWR this week […]
Midwifery Care Is Good For Health Insurance Carriers
…in Colorado there is no such thing as home-birth coverage on individual policies. In fact, there are only a handful of health insurance carriers in Colorado that offer maternity coverage on individual policies at all, and for most people, the coverage provided isn’t worth the extra premium […]
Why Is There A Balance To Bill In The First Place?
In CA, regulators are working to impose a ban on “balance billing” – the practice of billing patients for amounts over what their health insurance companies will pay for a given procedure. While most health insurance networks prohibit balance billing, there are only eight states that regulate the practice, and a good number of patients… Read more about Why Is There A Balance To Bill In The First Place?