Managed Care: Alternative Healthcare Gets a Boost in Minnesota
Responding to growing member demand for alternative healthcare coverage, HealthPartners will become the first health plan in Minnesota to offer access to a broad range of alternative healthcare treatments. Starting in March, HealthPartner's membership of more 800,000 covered lives in the state will be able to choose from more than 100 alternative care providers.
The network, administered by Infinite Health which specializes in alternative healthcare treatments in Minnesota, will give members access to:
- a directory of alternative healthcare providers for
- 60+ alternative healthcare treatments including acupuncture, therapeutic message and chiropractic care.
- Outcome studies and patient satisfaction research.
Because the Infinite Health program is completely separate from HealthPartners' covered benefit plans, members who select it will pay an annual membership fee directly to Infinite Health and healthcare service fees will be paid directly to providers. HealthPartners would not disclose what these fees might be. (HealthPartners, Sara McFee, 612/883-5301)
Healthcare Partnerships: High-Risk Patients Are Targeted to Drive Down Costs
Targeting health plans that are struggling to manage the cost of covering the most expensive patient segments - chronic disease sufferers - two national healthcare companies are teaming up to offer more cost-effective case management services and early intervention medical programs.
PCS Health Systems (Scottsdale, Ariz.), the country's largest pharmaceutical care management company and Health International (Scottsdale), a provider of data-driven medical case management services, will combine their databases to identify and intervene in the care of some of the most seriously ill patients.
While these patient segments account for a fraction of the country's entire patient population, PCS President Jean-Pierre Dillon stresses that they incur the majority of healthcare costs. He noted that 10% of the Medicare population accounted for 70% of the healthcare expenditures.
Initially, the partnership will analyze the claims of PCS's 60 million covered lives for areas of high-risk disease management and more cost-effective methods of resolving them and then target new business opportunities with employers, HMOs and managed care organizations. (PCS, 602/391-4600; Health International, 800/333-3760)
Publishing: Research Publisher Launches National Clinical Trials Newsletter
Research-focused hospitals that want to inform patients about clinical trials can now distribute New Medical Therapies, a national newsletter published by Boston-based CenterWatch.
The publication will provide patients with in-depth reports on experimental and newly approved drug therapies. The premier issue was distributed this month by physicians and clinical investigators to more than 300,000 patients.
CenterWatch specializes in news and information about the clinical trials industry and is targeting the more than one million people projected to volunteer for clinical trials in 1998.
Each issue will report on medical advances for a wide range of chronic ailments, aging, alternative therapies and will also include monthly round-ups of health studies and readers column.
The annual subscription is $32. Free samples are available to healthcare organizations. For more information, contact Ken Getz at 617/247-2327.
Online Ventures:CCN Launches Point-and-Click-Access to Providers; Physicians
Responding to the growing need for online access to healthcare providers and physicians, CCN went online earlier this month to provide millions of employees with access to more than 2,000 hospitals and 200,000 physicians. As a national healthcare management company offering workers' compensation and group health PPO networks to more than 30 million people in 44 states, the online directories (http://www.ccnusa.com) is the latest initiative for improved customer service, efficiency and convenience. (CCN, 619/654-2202)