assistance with medical bills

Reform Could Accelerate Shift to High-Deductible Plans

J Roberts

There may be hope for consumer directed high deductible plans afterall. Read the following article to learn more.

By Charlotte Huff, Workforce Week Magazine

High-deductible plans, with or without an attached savings account, may provide the best flexibility to meet the coverage limits—both minimum and maximum—inherent in the health reform legislation.

Before health care reform, benefits consultants worried that the insurance overhaul would sideline consumer-directed plans or perhaps jettison them altogether. Their latest sentiment: modest to substantial optimism.

As with any post-reform plan, large employers should carefully structure their consumer-directed options, typically a high-deductible policy paired with another account, such as a health savings account. Ideally, coverage would adhere to a middle ground, meeting the reform legislation’s minimum coverage requirements without becoming sufficiently generous to trigger the so-called “Cadillac,” or excise, tax, beginning in 2018.

But the myriad ways in which these high-deductible plans can be structured likely leave them well situated in the post-reform world, benefits consultants say. Along with the plans’ flexible design, they also cite other reform-related changes as being influential, such as the new limitations on another type of account, the flexible spending account.

“Frankly, these consumer-directed plans are pretty well-positioned,” says Michael Thompson, a principal in the health and welfare practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers. “I think what we’ll find is not a slowing of the process, but actually an acceleration of the process to consumer-directed and high-deductible plans in general.”

Before President Barack Obama signed health reform into law in March, consumer-directed plans were already gaining some traction among large employers, according to an annual survey conducted by the National Business Group on Health and Towers Watson. By 2011, 61 percent of employers intend to offer a consumer-directed plan; the option was provided by only 33 percent in 2006. Meanwhile, nearly half (46 percent) of those who offered a consumer-directed plan in 2010 reported enrollment of at least 20 percent.

As more employees signed up, the cost per employee declined, according to the same survey, which involved 507 employers each with at least 1,000 employees. Annual health costs per employee totaled $6,848 when at least half of the employer’s workforce enrolled in a consumer-directed plan, compared with $7,743 per employee when enrollment fell below 20 percent.

Employers are paying closer attention than ever before to those types of bottom-line statistics, says Alexander Domaszewicz, national health consumerism lead for Mercer. “None of the cost issues and very few of the quality and delivery issues have been meaningfully addressed in the reform legislation,” he says.

Cost pressures
As employers look ahead, one worry is the excise tax. Effective in 2018, a 40 percent tax will be applied to any of a health plan’s total value that exceeds the premium threshold—$10,200 for individual coverage or $27,500 for family coverage.

But Jay Savan, a senior consultant at Towers Watson, says other economic constraints just a few years off will be more influential than the excise tax in encouraging employers to consider a high-deductible plan.

Beginning in 2014, once the health insurance exchanges are established, employers will have an incentive to keep employees’ premium contributions below 9.5 percent of their adjusted gross income if workers earn less than 400 percent of the federal poverty level, Savan says. Otherwise, the employer will have to pay a penalty—typically $3,000 annually per such employee who receives coverage through a health exchange—for surpassing that premium ceiling.

That’s a relatively low bar, Savan says. For a family of four, 400 percent of the federal poverty level is $88,200 annually. If that penalty were in effect today, that employee couldn’t pay more than nearly $8,400 annually toward health coverage.

“The plans that are most likely to allow the employer to stay under that [premium] threshold are going to be high-deductible health plans,” Savan says. “Whether they are HSA-compatible or not, it’s going to be those plans, by virtue of simple mathematics.”

The average annually family health premium, as of 2009, reached nearly $13,400, according to an annual survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust. But the employee’s contribution averaged just $3,515.

For companies with lower-income employees, though, a relatively low premium can still exceed 9.5 percent of adjusted gross income, Savan says. Add in rising health costs and that likelihood increases, he says.

Establishing guardrails
In a sense, the new health reform law contains inherent guardrails that employers should pay attention to, Domaszewicz says. On the lower end, they should make sure that coverage isn’t classified as inadequate—defined as covering less than 60 percent of allowable costs. But as their plans’ total value increases, employers also need to stay sharp, he says.

“They can’t design them [the plans] too rich because they will eventually hit this excise tax,” he says. “They can’t design them too poor or too skinny because they are not going to meet this 60 percent requirement in terms of actuarial value.”

The reform law’s move to cap FSA contributions at $2,500 annually, beginning in 2013, also may spur employees themselves to take a second look at health spending accounts, says Chantel Sheaks, a principal in Buck Consultants’ National Technical Resources Group. A parent who is facing a large bill for braces, for example, may decide to bypass the FSA and instead contribute a higher amount to an HSA-linked insurance plan, she says.

Another reform-related wrinkle, Thompson adds, is that contributions to savings accounts, including an FSA or HSA, will be counted toward the plan’s total value in determining whether it qualifies for the excise tax. “It’s only a matter of time before FSAs become less common with employers,” he says.

In the years ahead, employers may adopt other measures, such as limiting company or employee contributions to HSAs, to prevent hitting the excise tax threshold, Savan says. But the Towers Watson consultant, a longtime proponent of consumer-directed plans, remains bullish that their time has finally arrived.

By 2013, nearly all large employers will be offering the insurance option, Savan predicts. And more employees will buy in, doubling the current median enrollment of 15 percent to 30 percent or more, he says.

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If Healthcare Reform Fails: Fewer Well-Insured Patients Will Leave Doctors Hurting

J Roberts

Is the current Medicare reimbursement method flawed?  It depends on your perspective, but one thing appears more and more apparent – the recent healthcare reform bill does not appear to be a solution to the problem.

BNET Today

Judging by the opposition of surgical societies and some state medical societies to the Senate healthcare-reform bill passed last December, many physicians — particularly highly paid specialists — are relieved now that it appears the legislation is on its deathbed. But they shouldn’t be too gleeful, because in the absence of reform, fewer and fewer patients will be able to afford their services.

Just ask Clyde Yancy, a cardiologist who heads the American Heart Association (AHA). Yancy cited a recent AHA survey of heart patients in explaining why he believes that reform of the system is still necessary. In the survey of 1100 adults who said they had heart disease, a stroke, or high blood pressure, 56 percent of the respondents — most of whom had insurance — said they’d had trouble paying for prescription drugs or medical care in the past few years.

In an op-ed piece about the survey in a trade publication, Yancy referred to the “collective sigh” of relief among physicians about the stalling of reform and suggested that it’s premature. “The need for the discussion has not gone away,” he said. “If anything, that need is highlighted by this survey.”

Of course, Yancy is walking a fine political line. He chose not to highlight the financial pain doctors will feel as insurance coverage shrinks, and instead focused on the problem of patients not receiving proper care because they can’t afford it. But his intended audience of heart doctors can certainly read between the lines, particularly since they’re already battling to preserve their incomes in light ofsome recent Medicare changes.

Last fall, Medicare announced changes in its reimbursement methodology that basically lowered payments to specialists while raising them for primary-care physicians. Cardiologists, among the hardest hit specialists, were slated to lose an average of eight percent in 2010 and more in the ensuing three years. The new fee schedule also slashed payments for nuclear scans by 40 percent and cut the fees for echocardiograms and other tests by about a third. In late December, the American College of Cardiology (ACC) sued HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to reverse the cuts scheduled to take effect Jan. 1. Two weeks later, a federal court in Miami dismissed the suit on jurisdictional grounds, but the ACC pledged to carry on the legal fight.

The cardiologists, of course, claim that the drop in Medicare payments for high-end imaging tests will drive some of them out of business and that they’ll have to cut back on the services for the poor. In actuality, though, heart doctors have steadily ramped up their use of tests and other services to maintain their incomes. A study released last fall by cardiology services provider MedAxiom found that visits to cardiologists had risen 12 percent in 2009 and that return visits had climbed 34 percent since 2000. Meanwhile, the number of echos that cardiologists performed jumped 15 percent in 2009 and 43 percent in the previous five years.

These numbers highlight the main issue: the more Medicare cuts back on reimbursement, the more tests, procedures and follow-up visits physicians do. And the more doctors do, the more Medicare cuts its fees. The only solution is to dump the fee-for-service payment system — a goal that some of the provisions in the healthcare reform legislation would move us toward. Having to live within a budget would upset cardiologists even more than the recent Medicare cuts. But it’s hard to see how their patients will be able to afford their services in the long run under any other reform plan.

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Statistics: Who Visits the Emergency Room? 20 Percent of Americans, Insured or Not

J Roberts

Here are some interesting facts about who visits the ER from The New York Times. One interesting fact to take note of, people with private insurance visit the ER almost as much as people without insurance.

By RONI CARYN RABIN

Americans, insured and not, make ample use of hospital emergency rooms: One out of every five visited an E.R. at least once in 2007, the latest year for which the National Center for Health Statistics has data.

Among the uninsured, 7.4 percent made two or more visits to an E.R., but so did 5.1 percent of people with private insurance. Medicaid recipients were the heaviest users of E.R.’s, with 15.3 percent of them making two or more visits during the year.

Adults in fair or poor health were most likely to go to an E.R. More than a third of them visited an emergency room at least once during the year.

People younger than 65 who said the E.R. was their only health care facility were no more likely to have gone to an emergency room than others, and for those older than 65, there were more E.R. visits by people with a usual source of care than by those without one.

More than 25 percent of non-Hispanic blacks visited an E.R., compared with 20 percent of whites and about 18 percent of Hispanics. For people younger than 75, age made little difference.

In all age groups, about one in five people went to the E.R. But among those older than 75, one in four visited the E.R. at least once.

The uninsured were no more likely to make non-emergency visits to the E.R. than anyone else — about 10 percent of visits were for non-emergencies, whether the patients had private insurance, Medicaid coverage or no insurance.

Figuring out who visits emergency rooms, how often and for what reasons involves sorting out complex interactions among many factors — socioeconomic level, health status, age, health insurance, access to health care and others.

“Our job is to provide the best numbers to inform policy and practice,” said Amy B. Bernstein of the National Center for Health Statistics. “If people are concerned about the use of emergency rooms and how to make their use more efficient or effective, they should have accurate information about who is actually using them — and not who they think is using them.”

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Workshop warns business to brace for surging health care costs

J Roberts

Will the new healthcare reform act be beneficial to patients at the cost of being harmful to business? The jury is still out, but onething is for certain, costs will continue to rise in the immediate future.

The Daily – 07/22/10

By Beth Fitzgerald

As the new federal healthcare reform law is phased in through 2014, employers will face increased costs to comply with new regulations and reporting requirements, even as their health insurance premiums continue to rise.

That was the view from Scott Rappoport, CEO of Benefit Sources & Solutions, in

Bound Brook, who presented a workshop on the new law Thursday morning sponsored by the Somerset County Business Partnership. The session was held at Financial Resources Federal Credit Union’s Bridgewater office.

Rappoport reviewed key provisions of the law, starting with the “grandfathering” of healthplans that were in effect when the new law was adopted by Congress on March 23.  Many employers can keep their old plans – but the restrictions are such that, in most cases, it will be too costly to try and hang on to an old plan, he said. “I really believe that in two years, it will be so ridiculously expensive to maintain a grandfathered plan that it won’t make any sense,” he said.

One positive aspect of the law is that it spells out the “essential benefits” – including preventive care – health plans must provide, he said, which addresses a need to “focus on wellness and chronic disease management, and getting and staying well.”

In 2010,employers with fewer than 25 workers averaging salaries of $50,000 or less who pay 50 percent of their health insurance premiums can get a tax credit of 35 percent of the employer’s premium contributions. But Rappoport said in New Jersey, a high-wage state, many small employers won’t qualify.

Yet New Jersey Citizen Action, a consumer advocacy group, this week released a report by Washington, D.C. – based Families USA that estimated more than 100,000 New Jersey businesses could be eligible for the tax credit this year.

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Hijacked, Stolen Health Care Reform: Why Health Care Costs Will Not Be Contained

J Roberts

Costs continue to rise even with the passage of landmark healthcare reform. Read the following article for an interesting take on outcomes of the new reform.

John Greyman

The passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Act of 2010 (PPACA), our new health care legislation, in March was hailed by its supporters as an historic event of the magnitude of Social Security and Medicare. But four months later, it remains controversial, with repeated polls showing three large groups of divisive opinion, including those who would work to repeal it and others who believe that it will make no difference. The Democrats have launched a $125 million PR campaign to defend the new law amidst growing signs that many Democrats facing re-election are failing to get political traction on the issue. (1)

We are being advised by many to “wait and see” how this complex new bill plays out over the next five to ten years, but we can already know what its outcomes will be. More than 30 years of health policy science, including documentation of the repeated failures of incremental changes built into the new law, together with well-entrenched trends in our market-based system, allow us to project its outcomes with confidence. For this legislation has been molded and crafted by the political power and money of corporate stakeholders in the medical-industrial complex.

Five previous posts in 2009 described the uneasy “alliance” of the five biggest players — the insurance industry, the drug industry, the hospital industry, business and organized medicine. They will do just fine with the new law at the expense of patients, families and Main Street.

Health care “reform” this time around was intended to address these four basic system problems: (1) containing health care costs, (2) making health care more affordable, (3) increasing access to care, and (4) improving the quality of care. This post introduces a series of five that will examine how well the PPACA will do on each of these four goals, followed by an overall assessment of the law. These posts will draw in part from my new book Hijacked: The Road to Single Payer in the Aftermath of Stolen Health Care Reform, soon to be released by Common Courage Press in both print and eBook format.

Continued Unrestrained Drivers of Health Care Costs

These are some of the many reasons that we can already conclude that health care costs will continue to run out of control at rates far exceeding the costs of living and median household incomes.

• No price controls. Wall Street has already factored in rapid expansion of markets for drugs, medical devices and other services in a system of expanded access. There is also a long line forming of providers of information technology and administrative services that will exploit the complex implementation of this law.

• No bulk purchasing. The PPACA has prohibited the government from negotiating the prices of prescription drugs and retains a ban on importation of drugs from Canada and other countries.

• Lack of control over perverse incentives that drive increased volume of services. These in turn are driven by retention of fee-for-service (FFS) reimbursement that encourages physicians and other providers to offer more services than are medically appropriate or necessary.

• No effective mechanism to rein in marginal or ineffective technologies. Coverage policies for new drugs and medical devices are still lax and not subject to rigorous evidence-based criteria for either efficacy or cost-effectiveness.

Although the PPACA does call for a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, its role is already neutered by not having the power to mandate or even endorse coverage or reimbursement rules for any particular treatment. (2)

• The dominant business model of health care prevails, with many facilities and services remaining for-profit and investor-owned and with an ongoing trend for increasing consolidation within industries.

• The PPACA has grandfathered-in specialty hospitals, typically physician-owned facilities that focus on well-reimbursed procedures in such areas as cardiology and orthopedics, whereby physicians can “triple dip,” earning high incomes as providers, owners and investors.

• More preventive services will further fuel health care inflation. While the PPACA does provide new coverage for many preventive services, this will lead to increased costs due to additional diagnostic and treatment services engendered. (3)

• Private insurers can’t contain health care costs, even where they have dominant market power. A 2009 report by the Congressional Research Service, “The Market Structure of the Health Insurance Industry,” concludes that:

The exercise of market power by firms in concentrated markets generally leads to higher prices and reduced output — high premiums and limited access to health insurance — combined with high profits. (4)

• There are no controls over premium rate increases by insurers. Despite the outcry by government officials, annual premium rates are escalating at rates up to 56 percent (5), and there is no end in sight for continued exorbitant rate increases. Insurers will continue to game the system by extracting maximal profits and offering reduced coverage with actuarial values (the amounts insurers actually pay in coverage) as low as 60 or 70 percent.

• National health care spending will grow unabated despite the passage of
PPACA. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) projects that overall national health expenditures (NHE) will increase from its present 17 percent of GDP to 21 percent in 2019, a total of $4.470 billion. (6)

These well-documented trends leave no room to think that health care “reform” will have any chance to contain health care costs. Instead, health care inflation will be exacerbated by all the new incentives and inefficiencies in the new “system.” In our next post we will examine the impact of these trends on affordability of health care.

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When Choosing Health Care, Know What You’ll Owe

J Roberts

Buyer beware! Most people don’t realize just how much out-of-pocket spending a healthplan may cost them until they become seriously ill or are hospitalized. The below article sheds light on the out-of-pocket expenses many consumers face and what they should be aware of when choosing a healthplan.

By WALECIA KONRAD

If you’re like most people, you may think they are the same. But while it is true both terms refer to the portion of medical bills you pay out-of-pocket, these two types of cost-sharing are quite different.

A co-pay is a fixed amount that you pay each time you see a doctor or fill a prescription, usually around $10 or $20. Co-insurance is the percentage of the cost of doctor visits, hospitalizations and prescription drugs that you must pay under your insurance policy.

Let’s say your policy calls for 80/20 co-insurance. After you meet your deductible, you must pay 20 percent of your medical bills; the insurance company is responsible for the remaining 80 percent.

Many plans demand both co-pays and co-insurance. Co-insurance is especially common when it comes to hospital stays. Of all workers covered by an employer-sponsored group health plan, 51 percent must pay co-insurance for hospital admissions, according to the 2009 Kaiser Family Foundation survey of employer health benefits. The average payment is 18 percent of the total. And 53 percent of covered workers pay co-insurance for outpatient hospital visits, with an average charge of 19 percent.

Co-insurance is common in the individual insurance market. And as companies head into this fall’s open enrollment season, many are considering a switch from co-pay to co-insurance as a way to increase employee cost-sharing and contain rising health benefit expenses, said Tom Billet, director for health and group benefits at the consulting firm Towers Watson.

Because of the confusion involving co-pay and co-insurance, many patients don’t realize just how much it may cost them until they become seriously ill or are hospitalized, said Lynn Quincy, a senior policy analyst at Consumers Union. “Ten or 20 percent may not sound like much, but 20 percent of a $100,000 surgery is a lot of money,” she said.

Co-insurance payments can add up quickly for seriously ill patients. It’s not unusual, for example, for a cancer patient to need $40,000 worth of medicine in a given year.

“Co-insurance on that could be as much as $14,000, and that’s just for the drugs. That’s not even counting going to the doctor or the hospital yet,” said Stephen Finan, senior director of policy at the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network.

High co-insurance and other out-of-pocket costs, including insurance premiums, can sometimes discourage patients from receiving the treatment they need. One in three individuals under age 65 diagnosed with cancer has delayed needed health care in the last 12 months, according to a Cancer Action Network poll.

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Employers’ Medical Costs to Rise in 2011

J Roberts

Looks like medical costs are expected to trend well above inflation for 2011. In addition, consumer out-of-pocket costs have increased as employers continue to shift the cost onto employees.

Medical costs are expected to increase by 9 percent in 2011, according to a report from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. Although the increase is down 0.05 percent from the 2010 growth rate, it still is expected to outpace the rate of inflation. For the first time, the majority of the American workforce is expected to have a health insurance deductible of at least $400 as more employers return to indemnity-style cost sharing by raising out-of-pocket limits, replacing co-payments with co-insurance and adding high-deductible health plans.

Hospital and physician costs, which make up 81 percent of premium costs, are the biggest inflators of the 2011 medical cost trend. Hospitals shifting costs from Medicare to private payers and employers is seen as the top reason for higher medical cost trends. In 2011, Medicare will reduce payment rates to hospitals for the first time after seven years of increases that almost matched or exceeded inflation increases. Some hospitals that benefitted from higher payments in 2008 and 2009 may be able to manage this type of cut by tapping their reserves, but many hospitals are likely to shift more costs to commercial payers during their negotiations, according to the report.

In addition, increasing consolidation among physician practices is expected to increase their bargaining power. Payers expect to see more negotiating power and higher prices in the short term, but efficiencies created by consolidation will moderate future rate hikes.

The report findings are based on a survey of more than 700 employers from 30 industries and interviews with health plan actuaries.

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Doctors tack on ‘a la carte’ fees for patients

J Roberts

It appears that physicians are now charging ‘a la carte’ fees for services not traditionally covered by insurance or Medicare. The extra fees mean greater out-of-pocket costs for consumers. Read on to learn more.

By Alison Young • USA TODAY •

A growing number of doctors across the country are boosting revenue by asking patients to pay new fees for services they say insurance doesn’t cover, insurance and physicians’ groups say.

The extra payments include no-show fees of $30-$50 for missed appointments, widely varying charges for filling out health forms for school, work or athletic teams, and annual administrative fees of $35-$120 or more to simply be a patient in some practices, medical associations and doctors say.

“It’s not unlike the airlines,” said William Jessee, president of the Medical Group Management Association, which generally advises against extra fees that may anger patients or run afoul of insurance contracts. “They’ve gone from all-inclusive to a la carte. That’s what you’re seeing with physicians.”

Doctors who charge extra fees are in the minority, he said. Some have done it for years, but more are joining them because they say they need the fees to offset the rising costs of practicing medicine.

Allen Greenlee, an internist in Washington, sent a letter in March to 7,000 patients in his group practice asking for a voluntary $35 annual administrative fee for costs insurance didn’t cover. He said he got only two angry letters and dozens paid extra to help others. “I’m trying to stay solvent,” he said.

WellPoint, the nation’s largest insurer by membership, is receiving more inquiries from doctors seeking to charge annual administrative fees.

“We have seen some increase in that type of activity,” said John Syer, a vice president over provider contracting at WellPoint, which operates 14 Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans. “The vast majority do not engage in that,” Syer said, noting such fees may violate provider agreements if doctors charge for items insurers consider included in their payments.

Though no national data are available on how many practices charge extra fees, Jessee said primary care doctors face increased financial pressures as insurance reimbursement hasn’t kept pace with costs. The result has been a growing shortage of primary care physicians as medical students choose more lucrative specialty fields. Primary care is critical to the nation’s new health law, which will give 32 million uninsured Americans coverage.

Office visits are the main source of insurance payments to primary care doctors, yet physicians spend much of each day on activities they’re not directly compensated for, such as phone calls and prescription refills, a study in The New England Journal of Medicine in April found.

“A lot of doctors are trying all kinds of experimental things just to survive,” said Gary Seto, a doctor in South Pasadena, Calif., who charges an annual $120-per-family “non-covered benefits fee.”

Sue Braga of the Arizona chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics said she’s hearing of more practices charging for no-shows and health forms.

Susan Wheeler, 33, said her kids’ pediatrician near Atlanta recently started a $10-per-child form fee. “I don’t like it,” she said. “It’s part of their job.”

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HealthPass NY Enhances Small Employer Health Insurance Plans with Medical Cost Advocate

J Roberts

Medical Cost Advocate is in the news again! Read about the partnership between HealthPass of New York and Medical Cost Advocate to provide medical advocacy and bill negotiation services to the employees that participate with HealthPass.

Addition of Medical Cost Advocate Helps Employees Negotiate and Minimize Out-of-Pocket Health Care Costs

Online PR News – 09-February-2010 – NEW YORK, February 9, 2009

HealthPass, the New York City-based non-profit health insurance exchange for small employers, today announced a partnership with Medical Cost Advocate Inc. to provide advocacy services to employees who participate in any of its health insurance plans.

Under the arrangement with Medical Cost Advocate (MCA), employees and families enrolled in any of HealthPass’ portfolio of coverage options will have access to the services of MCA’s advocates. Medical Cost Advocate’s professionals personally assist employees with reviewing their medical bills and reducing their out-of- pocket costs by negotiating discounts directly with health care providers.

“We are thrilled to be working with Medical Cost Advocate, especially at a time when employees are being asked to accept more of the responsibility for their health care costs,” said Vince Ashton, executive director of HealthPass. “Employees simply don’t have the time or expertise to understand the complexities of medical bills and explanation of benefits. This unique service gives employees in any of our plans direct access to experts who will review and negotiate all out of pocket expenses, often times reducing costs by as much as 50 percent.”

Medical Cost Advocate professionals will review and negotiate virtually any medical bill, regardless of insurance status or medical procedure. These include in and out-of network bills for full and excess charges, balance bills, deductibles, co-insurance and non-covered services. Employees are only charged for the service when the advocates are successful in saving them money. The Medical Cost Advocate program is the latest enhancement to HealthPass offerings for small employees also including COBRA/State Continuation Administration, the discount Rx cards and Health Advocate, which complements the Medical Cost Advocate offering perfectly.

HealthPass is an innovative partnership that was created in 1999 by the New York Business Group on Health, the City of New York and the health insurance industry. Its original purpose was to offer small businesses quality, affordable health insurance options. This is accomplished through an insurance exchange that allows eligible employees to choose a plan that fits their medical needs and budgets from a wide range of choices of plans and carriers. Today, HealthPass serves more than 3,700 small businesses and non-profit organizations and 33,000 members in New York City, Long Island, Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Dutchess and Putnam counties.

“Medical Cost Advocate is delighted to be partnering with HealthPass and helping their members deal with the ever growing complexity and cost of health care bills,” said Derek Fitteron, Chief Executive Officer of Medical Cost Advocate. “Our service not only benefits employees, but also employers who can offer an expanded benefits package that will enhance their ability to attract and retain talented workers.”

About HealthPass New York
An innovative partnership between the New York Business Group on Health, the City of New York, and the health insurance industry, HealthPass provides small businesses and sole proprietors with an array of Fortune 500-quality healthcare options through an insurance exchange.

HealthPass enables eligible employees of small businesses and sole proprietors to choose a healthcare plan that fits their medical needs and budgets. There are more than 30 different coverage options from five leading carriers – EmblemHealth, GHI, Health Net, HIP (Health Plan of New York) and Oxford – as well as two dental plans, and a bundled product offered through Guardian. With more than 200,000 providers, HealthPass affords greater network access than any single plan. For more information, please visit www.healthpass.com.

About Medical Cost Advocate
Medical Cost Advocate (MCA) is a medical cost reduction firm that lowers consumers’ medical bills before or after treatment through professional negotiation. Serving consumers, employers, benefits consultants and financial institutions, MCA leverages a proprietary approach that regularly saves consumers 20% to 50% on their medical and dental bills. With out-of-pocket health care costs steadily increasing, MCA provides the professional advocacy every consumer needs to realize savings without risk. MCA’s services are easy to access through its website. For more information, please visit localhost/wp1

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Healthcare Spending Expected to Have Outpaced GDP Growth

J Roberts

Healthcare Financial News

Healthcare spending is on track to grow faster than the nations GDP for 2009. Unfortunately, we’ve seen this trend for the past few years and 2010 will promise nothing different. One thing is for certain, to combat the increased expenditure in medical services, employers and health insures alike are passing more costs onto employees and consumers.

Growth in U.S. national health expenditures (NHE) is expected to have increased faster than the growth in the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2009, according to a report issued today by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and published online by Health Affairs. In 2009, NHE is projected to have reached $2.5 trillion and grown 5.7 percent, up from 4.4 percent in 2008 (the latest available historical year), while GDP, with the economy still in recession, is anticipated to have declined 1.1 percent. Health spending estimates for 2009 are projected because data for all of CY09 are not yet available.

The projected acceleration in growth for 2009 was due in part to faster spending growth for the Medicaid program (9.9 percent, up from 4.7 percent in 2008), reflecting increasing growth in enrollment associated with the recession. Also contributing to the acceleration was faster growth in the use of a variety of healthcare services as many people sought treatment for the H1N1 virus and an expected increase in the take-up rate for coverage provided through COBRA in response to the government’s subsidies for COBRA premiums. As a result of NHE growth outpacing GDP growth in 2009, the health share of GDP is expected to have increased from 16.2 percent of GDP in 2008 to 17.3 percent in 2009, which would represent the largest one-year increase in history.

Spending growth in three of the major healthcare sectors is expected to have accelerated in 2009. Hospital spending growth is expected to have increased 5.9 percent in 2009, up from 4.5 percent in 2008, and reached $760.6 billion. Physician and clinical services spending growth is expected to have increased 6.3 percent in 2009, up from 5.0 percent in 2008, and reached $527.6 billion.

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