Shopping for medical care
March 20th, 2009 | by Brian Schwartz |Some welcome price competition. From the Wall Street Journal blog:
Peggy Starr, a customer services agent for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, saved thousands of dollars on her heart surgery by getting on a plane. The Nevada native didn’t need to go overseas for surgery; instead, her employer flew her to Texas. …
Erickson says Healthplace America’s network can offer self-insured savings of 30% to 50% over rates negotiated by traditional insurers because the company pays the providers up front in cash based on fixed per-case rates. Typically, insurers pay providers after the surgery has been done.
It’s a strategy that giving some insurers food for thought. WellPoint Inc., the nation’s largest health insurer, is currently evaluating programs and benefits where customers can “elect to seek certain services at designated facilities for a fixed per-case rate,” according to a spokeswoman, Jill Becher. …
Uninsured Americans also are shopping around for surgery in the U.S. in record numbers, and using new services such as Healthbase Online Inc., a Boston-based medical brokerage that arranges treatments for patients at health-care facilities worldwide. Rodney Larson, a self-employed electrician from Minnesota, used Healthbase Online to arrange a triple heart bypass at Galichia Heart Hospital in Wichita, Kan. He paid $13,000 flat fee for the surgery, about $90,000 dollars less than the rate for uninsured patients in Minnesota.
(Via John Graham.)
tags: competition
