Tag: Insurance

Experts agree; insurance companies must change their patient incentives to eliminate another Opioid crisis.

Posted on by bill
Experts agree; insurance companies must change their patient incentives to eliminate another Opioid crisis. There is growing evidence that insurance companies and doctors are responsible for the current opioid crisis.   60 minutes covered this in their three-part investigation showing that drug companies willfully supplied new businesses with opioids that addicted thousands of people in Florida.   Some doctors profited handsomely from their prescriptive practices, while others just wanted to help.  Some of those doctors lost their licenses and others were jailed for their role in this fiasco. More evidence is showing that in order to resolve chronic problems such as neck Read More »

My health insurance just increased 25% in NJ; something is very wrong here.

Posted on by bill
My health insurance just increased 25% in NJ; something is very wrong here. Obamacare or nobomacare, it makes no difference to me or the patients we care for as long as it serves our needs at a reasonable cost. Something has gone off the rails in Washington, as the partisans politicians fight to defeat Obamacare.  These sets of rules and regulations, already present in New Jersey before Obamacare were designed to make it easier for individuals to buy healthcare coverage. Obamacare markedly increased buyers of insurance by expanding Medicaid through exchanges and by giving subsidies to those under a certain income bracket so Read More »

New Obamacare benefits begin today – These are good changes – check them out

Posted on by bill
According to Web md in their article published on line today (http://www.webmd.com/medicare/news/20100922/latest-round-of-health-reform-benefits-kicks-in), some of the new health care requirements kick in today.  These are good for Americans. Highlights include Removing lifetime dollar limits on essential benefits Giving people a right to appeal to an external party if denied coverage for a treatment Preventing insurers from dropping coverage of people when they get sick Limiting the use of annual spending limits of health plans Allowing consumers to use ob-gyns in their networks without needing a referral Prohibiting extra charges for using emergency care that is out of network Guaranteeing full coverage Read More »

Economy Led to Cuts in Use of Health Care – what do we make of this?

Posted on by bill
I read an article today that stated that a study done by the  National Bureau of Economic Research says that the recession reduced the utilization of health care services, across the board (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/health/policy/17health.html?_r=1).  They compared our country to others with lower out of pocket costs and found that the higher out of pocket expenses contributed to the reduction of utilization. Our office experienced this as well over the past 3-4 years.  I am aware of a recovery taking place since May of 2009 when business in our office picked up. Part of it was pent up demand and the other part of it Read More »

What’s a nice doctor like you doing in a plan like this. The story behind why after only four months in ASHN’s management of Cigna, we are leaving their network.

Posted on by bill
What’s a nice doctor like you doing in a plan like this. Why after only four months of ASHN managing Cigna, we are leaving their network. Ah, what is an ethical doctor to do?  Last January, we received a letter telling us that we can only continue our participation in Cigna Open Access Plus and the PPO if we become credentialed with a company called American Specialty Health Networks also known as ASHN.  We did not accept the Cigna HMO since ASHN took over their network around 1999, when their other vendor went out of business.  Cigna historically likes to Read More »