Here is a VERY interesting article and issue coming down in NY state. A medical doctor has started providing preventive health care for a flat fee of $79 a month... and the state's insurance regulators are questioning the ethics of the move? Wonder why?
Well... if people stop paying $1,000 dollar (or higher) a month insurance rates to insurance companies and instead pay individual doctors a monthly fee of just $79 dollars then guess what... the individual gets better preventive health care and the insurance companies get less premiums collected.
Hummm...
Now are the insurance regulators looking out for the good of the insurance providers or are they looking out for the good of humans?
FROM NY STATE
STATE REGULATORS FROWN ON NYC DOCTOR'S FLAT FEE
By JENNIFER PELTZ | Associated Press Writer, March 4, 2009
NEW YORK - Veteran doctor John Muney says his flat-fee, $79-a-month medical practice is a formula for making health care affordable and patient-friendly. But state regulators see it as self-styled insurance and have told him to shut it down.
The dispute, which emerged this month, reflects a rising issue in what is sometimes called "retainer" medical care. At least two other states have grappled with whether to consider such arrangements insurance, reaching different conclusions.
The question could become more pressing as jobs disappear in the ailing economy, taking many workers' traditional health insurance plans with them.
The debate "makes no sense to me. ... I feel that my flat-rate memberships provide a great service," Muney said at a press conference Wednesday. He is negotiating with the state Insurance Department to try to keep the service at his five AMG Medical Group centers around the city.
There are no definite numbers on how many of the nation's more than 1 million MDs and osteopathic physicians have flat-fee arrangements, some of which are known as "concierge" or "boutique" practices. But their popularity is mounting: Boca Raton, Fla.-based MDVIP Inc., which provides extensive preventive care for $1,500 a year, has grown into a 300-physician, 100,000-patient network in nine years, president Darin Engelhardt said.
Supporters say flat-fee plans let doctors strip away insurance company costs and red tape to make everyday medicine more accessible and less hectic...
Ever had any grief trying to deal with a health insurance company? Ever hear of an insurance company making medical decisions for a patient regardless of what the patient's own doctor thought was necessary for the patient?
This sounds like classic "follow the dollar" reasoning to me.
Doctors are getting fed up with trying to deal with bureaucratic insurance providers who assume that their dollars are what should dictate a patient's health care provisions.
Patients have long been fed up with trying to deal with insurance provider's bureaucratic mazes and regulations.
Perhaps a new wave of actual patient care is coming...
We can only hope so!
xtnyoda, shalomed
N/T Mommynator via Brutally Honest
Well... if people stop paying $1,000 dollar (or higher) a month insurance rates to insurance companies and instead pay individual doctors a monthly fee of just $79 dollars then guess what... the individual gets better preventive health care and the insurance companies get less premiums collected.
Hummm...
Now are the insurance regulators looking out for the good of the insurance providers or are they looking out for the good of humans?
FROM NY STATE
STATE REGULATORS FROWN ON NYC DOCTOR'S FLAT FEE
By JENNIFER PELTZ | Associated Press Writer, March 4, 2009
NEW YORK - Veteran doctor John Muney says his flat-fee, $79-a-month medical practice is a formula for making health care affordable and patient-friendly. But state regulators see it as self-styled insurance and have told him to shut it down.
The dispute, which emerged this month, reflects a rising issue in what is sometimes called "retainer" medical care. At least two other states have grappled with whether to consider such arrangements insurance, reaching different conclusions.
The question could become more pressing as jobs disappear in the ailing economy, taking many workers' traditional health insurance plans with them.
The debate "makes no sense to me. ... I feel that my flat-rate memberships provide a great service," Muney said at a press conference Wednesday. He is negotiating with the state Insurance Department to try to keep the service at his five AMG Medical Group centers around the city.
There are no definite numbers on how many of the nation's more than 1 million MDs and osteopathic physicians have flat-fee arrangements, some of which are known as "concierge" or "boutique" practices. But their popularity is mounting: Boca Raton, Fla.-based MDVIP Inc., which provides extensive preventive care for $1,500 a year, has grown into a 300-physician, 100,000-patient network in nine years, president Darin Engelhardt said.
Supporters say flat-fee plans let doctors strip away insurance company costs and red tape to make everyday medicine more accessible and less hectic...
Ever had any grief trying to deal with a health insurance company? Ever hear of an insurance company making medical decisions for a patient regardless of what the patient's own doctor thought was necessary for the patient?
This sounds like classic "follow the dollar" reasoning to me.
Doctors are getting fed up with trying to deal with bureaucratic insurance providers who assume that their dollars are what should dictate a patient's health care provisions.
Patients have long been fed up with trying to deal with insurance provider's bureaucratic mazes and regulations.
Perhaps a new wave of actual patient care is coming...
We can only hope so!
xtnyoda, shalomed
N/T Mommynator via Brutally Honest
posted by XtnYoda at 11:24 AM
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