There are benchmarks and deadlines in existence. However, the benchmarking organization is staffed by medical record software company CEOs and is tied to Chicago community organizer style politics. The deadlines are pretty loose and definitely elastic though so thats a good thing for doctor's offices. ER medical record systems and community health clinic record systems are two very disparate products in terms of the requirements and functionality that is necessary. Small community clinics have an obligation (because typically 70% of their business is Medicaid/Medicare, which pays about 70% of private health insurance rates) to herd as many patients through as possible. It has been a struggle for just about everyone to develop electronic systems which will allow country doctors to get a patient documented according to Medicare guidelines in under 7 minutes.
You did what's called "smearing". You baselessly tried to associate me with someone who inspires hate in people you know will be sympathetic to your nonsense. It's transparent, it's dishonest, and it's reprehensible. You've still provided nothing in this thread but self-serving opinion, and you have no answers for any of the verifiable things I've said. No wonder you resort to smear tactics!
This is an internet message board. You need to drink a big glass of "chillax". I've given you one important fact: that at least 50% of the insured in this country are insured by not-for-profit insurance companies. I will agree with you and concede that the Cignas, Aetnas and Humanas of the world need to conduct business with far more transparency and honesty. There's nothing really to say to isolated incidents in California that I just don't have time to research. However, my dealings have been otherwise with the largest insurer in our state, the not-for-profit BCBSLA. I asked you not to paint the entire insurance industry with the "state-sized" brush of "evil for-profit insurance companies", and you got your little panties all in a knot. Try offering some solutions instead of bitching.
Translation: Wahhhh! Stop calling me out on my nonsense! :lol: So now you're back to reassert the rainbows and unicorns emitting from the "non-profit insurers", particularly the one I use, BCBSLA. Would it surprise you to learn that the medical-loss ratio for BCBSLA is no better than the "for-profit" companies? You're keeping me too busy countering nonsense. :lol:
Nah. Nobody's a crybaby here. I'm just glad your thesaurus got a bit of use today. No, it wouldn't really. Is your qualm really with the State DOI, which doesn't require companies to reimburse premiums if they don't meet a minimum required ratio? Is it with the fact that the company must keep a minimum amount of money on hand in order to pay claims given a certain period of time with no premium intake? Or is it with the federal government, whose increasing regulatory requirements are causing insurance companies to have to continue to staff up, especially in information technology? Would you rather BCBSLA just get rid of half of its staff? I haven't really heard much of anything substantial from you outside of "For-Profit insurance companies suck, and nonprofits are just as bad".
Crybaby is as crybaby does. And the "thesaurus" crack? Another wrong "assumption" on your part. Jeez, do you ever stop digging? :lol: Wise man (for once) not to challenge my statement. I understand now why you've declined to provide the statistics I asked you for when you first introduced the rainbowey, unicorney "nonprofits" into this discussion. Given that "health insurance" has become how we pay for health care, for starters, I want it to return to 90%+ medical loss ratios. What we have is a stupid, wasteful system, and I've already mentioned a couple of ways it's actively hostile to the people who have no choice but to feed it. There are other ways I didn't mention. You said earlier, "I program electronic medical records systems." If that means you're the person who has to deal with the 80 different claims submission procedures from different insurance companies I heard the CEO of Kaiser Permanente bash on NPR one afternoon in July, like him, I'd like to see that consolidated into one procedure. It's ridiculous that before any of a health insurance premium is paid out, 20-25% of it goes up in smoke at the insurance company, and then there is the creation of a pointless industry to deal with claim submission, that is duplicated in every doctor's office. One couldn't design a stupider system than what has developed here. That's rich. I can back up everything I've said about policy rescission, medical loss ratios, and so forth, as well as what I've said about non-profits, which you introduced into the discussion and repeatedly tried to present as a source of rainbows and unicorns, which they most certainly are not. You are just a typical propagandist who dismisses facts, preaches BS, and tries to slime opponents using sleazy tactics, such as your current one of trying to wrap everything up into a tidy little bogus slogan. You are profoundly dishonest, and it goes back to your first reply to me, in which you asked that I not "paint with a state-sized brush" concerning "non-profit insurers". You said that in response to this, "The range a couple of years ago for the largest insurers was 76-83%. Fifteen or so years ago, it was near 90%. Not only is the medical loss ratio deteriorating, even as publicly traded health insurers post greater profits, Wall Street analysts punish the stock as the ratio ticks up in favor of the people paying the premiums. The goal of these companies is thus to pay as little of the premium as possible for actual health care in order to maximize their stock price." Clearly, I was talking about "for-profit" insurers, as I specifically characterized them as "publicly traded". Now, your response about the nonprofits might have had some relevance if you could demonstrate they do better that the for-profits WRT this medical loss ratio I discussed and you replied to. But you haven't, and apparently, you can't. All you can do is keep bringing up "non-profits" in your vague way, and blame their failure to improve on the "for-profits" on state and federal regulations, reasons you have utterly failed to put into concrete, verifiable terms. It's been mildly entertaining to watch, but so you'll know, it's grown very tiresome.
Sticks and stones, my friend. Could it be because I have better things to do than to look up statistics for you? I have inside information about such things. It isn't all "rainbows and unicorns" as it were. Do you recall the front-page news about OLOL system vs BCBSLA in 2008? OLOL was demanding a double digit increase in reimbursement because they have so many indigents in their ER that just.can't.pay. What you also haven't yet mentioned is a good, sustainable way to improve our current system. That's what clearinghouses are usually for. ANSI 837, 270, 271 are standardized documents. People need to get on EDI and these types of problems will vanish. Are you familiar with a government standard called "NPI"? That initiative alone has increased administrative costs at insurance companies over the past 3 to 4 years. You can come up with a couple anecdotes. :lsup: It wouldn't do any good for me to and try and estimate the amount of costs that the government standards called NPI, UB04, and post-1997 Evaluation & Management guidelines have dumped upon the backs of insurance companies and providers. You will stick to your googled numbers and anecdotes.
Concerning the BCBSLA refusal to capitulate to OLOL's demands, I haven't forgotten about it. Besides appearing in the paper, BCBSLA sent me a letter to let me know that "they were fighting for me". It doesn't change the fact that their medical loss ratio is on the order of 80%, when as recently as 15 years ago, medical loss ratios were measured in the 90's. The premiums BCBSLA charge me continue to rise 8-15% per year, except for the second year, when they raised it a whopping 45% over the first year. That's why I was considering switching to Humana or Aetna, but I had to put that on hold after learning about the industry-wide rescission policy, the disgraceful practice exposed in the congressional hearings in June 2009, which Blue Cross declined to attend, which allowed them to avoid publicly facing two of its victims who did testify. It should also be noted that I have never used my BCBSLA insurance. The health insurance business has grown more and more wasteful, and your vaunted "nonprofits" are everything but rainbowey and unicorney, which again is the false impression you've been trying unsuccessfully to impart. All you're continuing to demonstrate is that you have a bottomless pit of propaganda to draw from. When one thing doesn't stick, you throw out something new and equally vague/unverifiable/irrelevant/deceitful, indignantly refusing to support anything you've previously said. I'm done responding to it.
