Size doesn’t matter when it comes to health care……….

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Status quo strategies used to reduce health care spend by employers includes cost shifting to plan members. Higher deductibles and higher out-of-pocket costs reduces insurance premium costs but not health care costs.

Back in the day a health insurance deductible equaled one week’s worth of pay. A $100 deductible was standard back in 1975.

Now it’s not uncommon to see annual deductibles of $4000 and more, much more.

It’s evident cost shifting has not tamed the healthcare beast.

And it’s clearly evident size doesn’t matter. A +400,000 life self-funded health plan in Texas has been practicing cost shifting for years. 64% of plan members are on a $2,750 front end deductible with no first dollar coverage (except for preventive care) before benefits are paid.

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The Arthur J Gallagher 10k 145 page report for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2018 provides interesting insight into insurance brokerage services.

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         Status Quo Broker Reacts

THE STRATEGY

Allow providers to name their price and mold the member and plan responsibility around that.

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“Paying cash to see the doctor out of network cost less than half of seeing the same doctor in-network with insurance.”

Plan sponsors should adopt cash pay strategies as many of our clients have done with good success. Whereas a typical PPO plan will pay (with your money) as much as 225% – 400% of Medicare, our cash pay program pays ( with your money) Medicare rates or below on average.

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Lt. Col. E. Rusteberg – West Point 1934 – Two Silver Stars, One Bronze Star, Presidential Unit Citation (Battle of Hatten), Purple Heart.

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“Will my doctor accept our insurance” ….………… “Yes, unless he’s an idiot.” 

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Learn a foreign language in the comfort of your home! You will be glad you did! Never again scratch your head and wonder what the heck that health insurance salesman was trying to convey during those dreadful renewal meetings. Stop relying on body language! Become empowered NOW!

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There is no doubt catastrophic claims are on the rise. Turbo-charged hospital bills reach the ever present stop loss outlier provision (common to most managed care contracts) faster than a melting Raspa in deep South Texas on a hot day in August.

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Hello Americans. I’m Paul Harvey. You know what the news is —– in a minute you’re going to hear the rest of the story……………………..

At 20 years old Eric started a hospital charity to benefit children in need of health care. It was a noble endeavor. In less than 10 years, he raised more than $20 million for terminally ill children at Saint Jude Children’s Research Hospital in New York. His charity maintained just over a 9 percent cumulative expense ratio, one of the lowest expense ratios of any charity in the nation, and funded the construction of one of the most cutting edge intensive care units and surgery centers dedicated to children.

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Raising drug prices is “a moral requirement,” says Nostrum Labs CEO.

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Many hospitals are more interested in extracting money from vulnerable patients than providing quality care at a fair price………………but greedy healthcare participants like hospitals don’t have quite as much leverage as they’d like us to think………………..

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Your BCBS renewal could be the beneficiary of a reserve buy-down in 2020 which means lower than normal rate increases. New business rates should be below market too. That’s because “A $1.7 billion tax refund under the Trump administration’s tax cuts drove a 226 percent rise in net income to $4.1 billion, from $1.3 billion the year earlier.” 

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