UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH), the largest U.S. health insurer, said it saved $107 million in medical costs over three years by using incentives to persuade its employees to lose weight, make healthier lifestyle choices and get checkups. In the program's first year in 2010, 76 percent of employees reduced their family insurance premiums by meeting certain health goals, according to an article published today in the journal Health Affairs. Twenty-seven percent achieved the highest possible savings, cutting their premiums by $1,200, the company said in the report. The findings show that encouraging employees to become more involved in their health can help reduce medical costs, the UnitedHealth authors said.
If you show up to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania's emergency room but aren't in serious trouble, get ready to wait. New federal data show that the prestigious university hospital has the highest median ER wait times in the city at 81 minutes to see a doctor. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which publish the data from hospital submissions, say long waits can be a sign of understaffing or gridlock elsewhere in the hospital. And they can lead to lower quality care and more stressful stays for patients and families.
BOSTON (AP) — A union representing Massachusetts nurses is pushing a ballot initiative designed to set limits on the number of patients that can be assigned to a nurse at any one time. The question would also require hospitals to adjust nurses' patients assignments based on the severity of the medical needs of those in their care, the Massachusetts Nurses Association says. Union officials say patient limits can reduce the number of mistakes, serious complications and preventable readmissions. Massachusetts has no law that established the maximum number of patients a nurse can safely care for at any one time, said Donna Kelly-Williams, president of the Massachusetts Nurses Association/National Nurses United.
Steven Borders of Obetz has lost most of his sight and left leg to complications from diabetes. But despite the despair that sometimes closes in on the tattoo artist who spends most of his time in bed — "I feel like I'm at my life's end," he said through tears last week — he still has goals at age 63: "I would like to go to church and speak to youths and let them know there is a God." A doctor, a nurse practitioner and others providing a more hands-on approach to health care are working to improve those odds. For some of their sickest, costliest patients enrolled in Medicare, they receive incentives to ensure smooth transitions from hospital to home and to head off medical errors and duplication of services.
Aetna's decision Friday to withdraw the health insurance plans it had intended to offer through the state insurance exchange will have ramifications for everyone involved — including consumers. The Maryland Insurance Administration on July 26 released rates for plans to be offered to individuals through the new online marketplace, Maryland Health Connection, that were significantly lower than those requested by insurers. Aetna and Coventry Health, which Aetna owns, now say they were withdrawing from the exchange because the rates approved were too low. Aetna and Coventry had sought among the steepest increases and the rates approved by the insurance administration were significantly below what the insurer had requested.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has long been ahead of the private sector in health IT. Its VistA electronic health record (EHR) system, for example, was in use throughout the VA's hospitals and ambulatory clinics long before non-VA providers began to adopt EHRs en masse in the past few years. And as recent VA figures show, the department has also left the private sector in the dust in the area of telehealth. Last year, almost half a million veterans received some of their care remotely, either through virtual visits, home monitoring, or a store and forward system, according to Adam Darkins, MD, who leads VA's telehealth program.