Ready, Get Set, Enroll
The health plan equivalent of the Christmas rush has started. For national healthplans --Allina, HealthPartners and Blue Cross --the zero hour is here.
They've started reinforcing their corporate images with national television ads, soon to be followed by print ads touting quality and customer service. Thousands of information packets and provider directories are being shipped to corporate offices across their market areas.
For health plans, this is all part of the annual rite of fall: open enrollment, usually lasting through the end of November. It is a time when employees at many companies and organizations can drop or renew their health plan membership. The stakes are high. By some estimates, between 40 and 60 percent of employees at large companies are up for grabs.
Vanderbilt Ads Take Pot Shot
Vanderbilt University Medical Center's upcoming advertising campaign will take shots at competing Nashville hospitals by emphasizing the high quality of the center's physicians, hospital officials say.
"Many felt that we have hidden our candle under a bushel over the years, while our competition....advertise that they have the highest quality care in the region," said hospital spokesperson, Dr. John Sergent.
Vanderbilt's emphasis on physician quality comes as Nashville's four major hospitals are locked in a battle for patients and managed care contracts. The medical center has hired Birmingham, Ala.-based Lewis Advertising to oversee the effort. (Vanderbilt, 615/322-7311)
Feds May Approve Doc HMOs
One of the more heartening pieces of news to come along in recent weeks was the announcement that the U.S. Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission are cooperating to make it easier for doctors to form networks to provide comprehensive healthcare. The arrangements are very much like HMOs -with no insurance company or other intermediary between doctors and patients. This can be an ideal marketing opportunity for doctors. (FTC, 202/326-2222)
Medical Program Gets a Boost After Newspaper Runs Article
Uninsured Arkansans jumped to take advantage of free medical care after the little known non-profit program that ran it received some positive media coverage. Following a June article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the Arkansas Health Care Access Foundation got "the greatest response we've ever had," according to program director Pat Keller.
In 1989, the Arkansas Medical Society created the foundation to help people who don't qualify for Medicaid but can't afford health insurance premiums. In the past seven years, only about 40,000 residents have enrolled in the program. However, an estimated 107,300 Arkansans have no health insurance, fall below poverty guidelines and don't have Medicaid. Keller said she and her co-worker answer about 150 to 250 calls each day now.
Normally, Keller said, the foundation receives about 40 to 45 calls a day from people interested in applying to the foundation. (Arkansas Health Care Access Foundation, 501/221-3033)
AMA: Media is Distorting Managed Care
According to an editorial last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), despite media reportings, managed care is not killing patients.
"Despite anecdotes [in the media], some lurid, we have no objective evidence of any overall decline in the quality of care in the new system," wrote George Lundberg, the editor of JAMA, and Paul Ellwood Jr. of Jackson Hole, Wyo., a vocal advocate of managed care.
"Intensive price competition, low margins and lack of objective quality differentiation are causing the most personal of human services to become a commodity to be sold like soap or cereal," said the editorial. (JAMA, 202/789-7400)
Kaiser Wins for Quality
Kaiser Permanente has emerged as the leading California health plan on overall membership satisfaction in a nationwide survey of consumers.
The National Research Corp. (NRC) Oct. 14 named the Kaiser Permanente Southern and Northern California Regions the "1996 Quality Leaders in 12 out of 14 metropolitan areas in California, where it surveyed commercial health plans last week.
The nationally-syndicated study included approximately 170,000 households in more than 100 metropolitan areas in the 48 contiguous states. NRC asked consumers to rate their primary health plans on measures indicative of quality from a consumer's perspective. (Kaiser Permanente, 818/405-3004)
Survey: Consumers Skeptical About Cancer Diagnosis
You may have difficulty promoting your hospital's cancer diagnosis program --the results of a nationwide poll reveal that Americans are skeptical about cancer diagnoses and believe that, on average, nearly one-third (29 percent) of all cancers in the United States in 1995 were diagnosed incorrectly.
The survey, commissioned by Impath, a research firm based in New York City, questioned 1,007 Americans 18 and over about issues related to the diagnosis and treatment of cancer in today's healthcare delivery system. The good news is -- the majority (61 percent) of those polled responded that they would pay an extra charge for tests that were capable of delivering correct diagnoses leading to appropriate treatments on a customized patient basis. Seventy-one percent of respondents would insist that their doctors use these tests. (Impath, 212/702-8300)