“The best kept secret about managed care was that the so-called health care costs “saved” by the self-styled care managers ended up being shared with insurance administrators and their self-insured employer/clients – the sponsors and fiduciaries of their own employee’s benefit plans.”
“As we noted earlier, Preferred Healthcare’s president, Robert K Lifton, was quoted in Barrons: “the company actually has been able to save customers at least 30% of their health care costs and it splits those savings with the employers.”
“To this day, despite toady assurances to the contrary, the managed-care process has done nothing to lessen medical costs for the patient or improve the quality of healthcare delivery for the country.”
-The Managed Healthcare Industry – A Market Failure by Jack Charles Schoenholtz, MD- , page 409
TRANSLATION: Managed Care, i.e, PPO networks, do not save money. It is a complicated scheme designed to enrich third party intermediaries, funded by ignorant consumers who have no idea of the fraud brought upon them.
http://blog.riskmanagers.us/?p=8456
Editor’s Note:
We should all thank our medical providers for sharing part of our “savings” with third party intermediaries – nothing like spreading the wealth – “Hey doc, thanks for seeing me! My insurance will be crediting your account $400 for that service you charge $1,000 for. Part of the $600 savings, of course, will be coming out of your $400 to pay various parties to the scheme to defraud me and you. So your net payment, on your normal $1,000 charge will be around $200.”