An increasing number of doctors are asking patients to pay an annual fee to gain access to their examining rooms. The trend is on the uptick nationally, particularly among experienced doctors frustrated by what many see as an insurance system that's reducing doctors' pay, coming up with new pay-for-performance rules, or pushing them to see more patients to lower costs. But some healthcare analysts warn of a widening gap between the haves and have-nots. Paul Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change in Washington, D.C., said the new business models could create a class system in medicine.
The Michigan Office of Financial and Insurance Regulation will allow Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan to increase rates for some individual market health insurance policies by about 15.5%. The policies with rate increases cover fewer than 20,000 customers under age 65. Most of Blue Cross's individual market customers will not have a rate increase under this ruling, said company reprsentatives.
Rhode Island Gov. Donald Carcieri announced a plan six months ago to save the state $67 million by transforming the system for providing healthcare to the elderly, poor and disabled. The plan requires a "global Medicaid waiver" from the federal government. The General Assembly even approved a state budget that took the savings into account, but lawmakers and Rhode Island's 186,000 Medicaid recipients have yet to see a written plan. The proposal will likely be submitted to the federal government the end of July or early August, said Department of Human Services Associate Director Murray Blitzer.
Intimate exchanges among people living with disease are part of an unconventional strategy HealthCentral is following in an attempt to provide health information online. The company has unleashed dozens of independent Web sites about health topics, all with the hope of drawing people in search of help from others with similar problems.
Each of the HealthCentral sites features information such as symptoms and treatments, and the heart of the sites is a system connecting visitors with doctors and patient bloggers.
Doctors, physical therapists, and other medical providers are upset about a July 7 decision by the Oregon Workers' Compensation Division to change the way in which fees are paid. Although agency officials call the move necessary, the providers are now warning that if the July 7 decision stands, they could start refusing workers' compensation cases altogether.
Federal officials plan to investigate the health insurance industry, namely its all too common practice of revoking an insured patient's benefits when they develop an illness that may prove more costly to treat. Insurers, however, say such a practice is sometimes necessary, citing cases of fraud or misrepresentation.