Archive for the 'Gekkonian Rationing' Category

Why Backdating Stock Options Is Completely Understandable

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

The Wall Street Journal Health Blog reported yesterday that Bill McGuire, the former CEO of UnitedHealth, did not know that backdating stock options was wrong. McGuire was eventually fired for his unfortunate backdating activities.
According to the WSJ, in the way of explaining how McGuire might be unaware that backdating stock options is frowned upon his […]

Posted in Gekkonian Rationing | 1 Comment »

Capitation and Ratting on Patients

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

Recently the Wall Street Journal Health Blog reported that California Blue Cross, in reaction to “getting slammed by everybody from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Hillary Clinton,” has agreed to stop sending letters asking doctors to help them find patients who failed to disclose medical conditions on their health insurance applications, so the Blues could cancel their […]

Posted in Gekkonian Rationing, Primary Care in America | 4 Comments »

Covert Rationing More Successful This Year

Sunday, December 16th, 2007

According to a new Gallup Poll published on December 14, 30% of Americans admit to putting off medical treatment this year solely because they felt they could not afford the cost. Of those, 60% say the delay was for a medical condition that was very serious or somewhat serious. Results were based on telephone interviews […]

Posted in Gekkonian Rationing | 9 Comments »

The Practical Aspects of Fighting Confidentiality Clauses

Monday, November 19th, 2007

Last week, Roy M. Poses of Health Care Renewal asked the question: Why do physicians habitually sign contracts with health insurance companies, often without even reading them, when they know or suspect those contracts to contain language placing them or their patients at a disadvantage?
His question was prompted by a recent article in the […]

Posted in Gekkonian Rationing | 7 Comments »

Wonkonians Send Gekkonians a Message

Friday, October 12th, 2007

Joseph Paduda of Managed Care Matters comments (here) on the recent New York Times report (here) that private health insurers are, to be technical, screwing thousands of Medicare patients. According to federal auditors, the insurers accomplish this crime by employing devious sales tactics, misrepresenting their products, improperly terminating coverage for people with expensive diseases, […]

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Another Reason For Doctors To Avoid Primary Care Medicine

Monday, October 8th, 2007

As everyone knows, young doctors are avoiding primary care medicine in droves. And while healthcare policy experts feign great puzzlement as to why this might be, the answers seem pretty obvious. The pay (which is not determined by the market, but by Acts of Congress) is low, the hours long, the prestige diminishing. Primary care […]

Posted in Gekkonian Rationing, Primary Care in America | 7 Comments »

The Aetna CEO Must Have Missed This

Saturday, October 6th, 2007

The Wall Street Journal Health Blog now posts that Aetna CEO Ron Williams is “perplexed” about all the press coverage Microsoft has gotten for the launch of its on-line personal health record, while in stark contrast Aetna received almost no recognition from the press when it launched its own personal health record several months ago. […]

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Pay for Performance and Covert Rationing (1)

Tuesday, September 11th, 2007

Pay for Performance (P4P) is the latest trend among health insurers and our friends in the government in their never-ending efforts to assure that patients in their charge are receiving top-quality healthcare. At least, that’s what they say.
Under P4P, certain “clinical practice guidelines” are developed by Medicare or private insurers, based on the principles of […]

Posted in Gekkonian Rationing, Wonkonian Rationing, General Rationing Issues, Primary Care in America | 8 Comments »

Weep Not for UnitedHealth Group

Thursday, September 6th, 2007

Vanessa Furhmans of the Wall Street Journal Health Blog reports that a group of state insurance commissioners “plan to announce a multi-state settlement with [UnitedHealth Group] concerning some of its claims-paying systems.” It appears that regulators from four states have been negotiating a settlement with the health insurance giant for years. According to Furhmans, “the […]

Posted in Gekkonian Rationing, Wonkonian Rationing | 1 Comment »

A Truly Admirable Degree of Inefficiency

Tuesday, September 4th, 2007

Stanley Feld, MD, has an interesting post on his “Repairing the Health Care System” blog, describing how health insurance companies systematically screw doctors out of their deserved reimbursements. They accomplish this by employing byzantine rules, by strictly enforcing unintelligible requirements that shift like the sands, by establishing arcane appeals processes, and, when all else fails, […]

Posted in Gekkonian Rationing | 2 Comments »

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