Health Care Thoughts: Really Narrow Networks
by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt
Health Care Thoughts: Really Narrow Networks
“Narrow networks” are in the news as the ACA exchanges begin to do business (or not?).
From the Columbus Dispatch: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/10/07/low-cost-premiums-thin-out-providers.html
There may be other problems besides low payment rates. According to the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) contracting is slow, uncertainty is high, and physician groups have not been read in to the administrative practices of the exchange plans.
(Disclosure: I have done editorial work and seminars for MGMA.)
But wait, we have almost three months, right? Insurance contracting and administrative processes can be put into place, right?
Three months is not really long enough. Physician practices may be satisfied picking up new Medicaid patients, or just staying with the existing practice base, or playing wait-and-see.
The insurers should have had networks fully in place before October 1. Now we scramble. Again.
So let me figure this out.
People did not have insurance, or had insurance that was inferior. Now they have decent insurance they can afford, but they cannot go anywhere they want to obtain their healthcare.
And the idea is that people are worse off?
No, the idea is competence is lacking in the roll out of the program.
But liberals do not need to be competent, because their good intentions cover everything. 🙂
Paying for a health insurance policy from a company with an extremely limited provider network may be worse than no insurance at all.
Your last sentence is silly. Can you be seriously saying that no insurance would be better than being restricted to a limited network? C’mon, Rusty.
My insurance, according to my benefit update forms I just downloaded, cost a total of almost $20,000 a year for my wife and I.
They also have a limited provider network.
If the private insurance companies selling insurance on the exchanges have not done their job properly it will cost them business.
If the private insurance companies selling insurance on the exchanges have not completed their ” Insurance contracting and administrative processes” I would think that would be the fault of the private insurance companies.
Unless you can point me to the part of the ACA that mandates insurance companies go on the exchanges.
Hmmm:
Insurance companies will go on the exchange as it will be a considerable portion of the healthcare scene. Many states delayed in implementing State Healthcare Exchanges because they did not believe SCOTUS would rukle in favor of it and the legislatures arre Repub controlled. Michigan is an excellent example of this. Senator Joey Hune leads the way and I love kicking his butt down the road. Companies unprepared will lose out to prepred companies over time.