I personally am concerned that although the intent may be "well intentioned" my concern is that by doing so-would potentially open up being tagged with certain health issues consequentially causing a increase in my premium due to higher risk- potential liability etc. etc.. I have my annual check-up and  I do realize that the info. that the Dr. has on me is avail. to my ins. carrier if they are footing the bill-(however-now that I think of that...with high deductible plans-I wonder how that affects the visibility of that information and whether I ought to have more confidentiality if they are only paying a relatively small % of the office visit via "discounted rate" or what.) Anyway, the point is that if I am tagged as having a chronic condition-whether I will be penalized and / or excluded and for me to volutarily subject myself to the potential of such is not worth the 100$ one time credit that my co. is offering as an incentive!

I realize that I don't have nearly as much privacy as I would hope and most certainly not as much as I would prefer however, just by the principal of the matter-I do't like offering anyone info. on my health condition. Genetics are already here people, and you are naive if you think that your offspring will not be able to have info. that you provide on yourself avail. for future uses which I see as potentially exclusionary and prohibitive. Health care costs are goin out of this world and if it's not obvious that big business and bean counters won't propose unethical much less morally reprehensible tactics and strategys to contain costs at any cost is-well, naive at best-ignorant at worst.

Is that enough or do you now understand a deeper meaning as to the nature of lack of compliance with the voluntary assessment rsood? The appraisal's that other companies are using in which physicians fill out-don't have numbers on them as far as lab results. If you voluntarily provide them-then I would think you open yourself up quite a bit as to how that data is used interpreted and analyzed as well as the resulting consquences-ie. change in structure of an employer's plan coverage due to high risk for certain people /conditions etc. etc. One could argue that the employer might see a need to increase coverage if alot of their employees had a need for certain services and the optimistic Pollyanna would say that this tool might be used in that way. I think we all know that unfortunately such is rarely ever the case and conversely-that if an employer were forewarned by such data that those types of costly services and coverage for chronic type diseases or conditions could be mitigated by reducing their liability via our benefit coverage in those specific areas. 

 How do most of the rest of you feel about the subject now?

 melonman

 

Sorry Reena-I guess my comments need to be directed to Rudi...

melonman

Perhaps I am naive, but I totally do NOT have any of those concerns with the the Lumenos health assessment.  Maybe it's just because I don't have anything to hide.

I'm not sure what's worse...a customer that isn't honest and up front with relevent information they do or do not provide an insurance company, or an insurance company that uses a back-door method (health assessment incentive) to gain that information.  I'm not saying that either is the case here, but it does beg the question.

It's like the drivers that think a "Merge" sign means to stay in the lane that's merging until the last possible second and force somebody to halt the right-of-way lane to let you in.  If everybody would just get over as soon as possible even if it means, God forbid, you have to slow down a bit, traffic would flow smoother.  At least one of the reasons health premiums are as high as they are is that WAY TOO MANY people are succeeding in cheating the system.  Sure...some of those people that are cheating the system are insurance companies, drug manufacturers, hospitals, and doctors.  But customers ARE to blame as well.

Just my two cents.

Jered

Hi melonman

Great thread. Give me a bit to assemble my thoughts, I think some other folks would like to weigh in as well.

 thx

rudi

I suppose in today's day and age I personally would be more concerned about corporations and conglomerations dictating public policy and the "norm" with regard to these back-door approaches. BCBS is already incorporating MANDATORY assesments into their co-pays / coverage structures-if you meet the "healthy" criteria then you get discounted co-pays and better coverage-and maybe rightly so. Unfortunately the reason health care costs have gotten so outrageous is that there ARE people (via corporations, lawyers, conglomerates) "cheating" the system. "Way too many people cheating the system"-meaning end users....hardly I think. The nature of insurance is calculated risk based on populations, demographics and statistics, additional information may be of some altruistic uses in providing healthcare coverage however, I think I am a bit more realistic about the nature of the beast...

Should healthier individuals pay less for healthcare-yes I would tend to agree however, that same initially "healthier" individual could become a much larger burden at any time in the future due to some chronic or potentially fatal contraction of a disease. This means that for those with chronic conditions currently-to be considered and described as more of a burden (ie. risk / cost) and as you suggest more dishonest by omitting disclosure of such; that they would be "cheating the system"-what would they be guilty of or "cheating" exactly?? If you are a single end-user w/o the benefit of being umbrella'ed by a larger group(-within a company), providing coverage for yourself is nearly impossible financially. Speaking of waste and cheating, how many times have you been directly billed for a medical service that IS clearly covered by your insurance policy prior to your insurance company paying for it in the last 5 years? How much is it costing everybody when they do this AND they spend 0.37 on every single person-every single time-for every single service and for how many months with each bill and endless phone calls before it finally gets billed and then paid (by the insurance company) correctly-finally... talk about a sickening WASTE of money!!! Ohhh but the real waste is just from "those clueless consumers that just don't have any idea how much health care costs truly are...we need to provide them the visibility..." ...blah blah blah!!! Who are the dishonest and negligent ones in this picture? Do you know what it costs medical practitioners for liability coverage in private practice? The litigious nature of our great entitlement minded society has fueled and filled the pockets of attorneys primarily at the expense of losing good physicians availability in private practice. So please don't tell me about the end users' cheating the system as part of the reason healthcare costs have skyrocketed. Some people get sick, some people don't-some people live unhealthy lifestyles, some people don't...period.

Hippa is suppposed to provide protection of the confidential info. and it is claimed that it can only be used in aggregate however how secure are the records in years to come? What if a company sees that a large percentage of it's workers have a propensity towards a debilitating type of disease-will the insurance providers suggest alternatives to save costs by limiting their coverage in certain areas to minimize potential costly liability and exposure?? Will my son or daughter get marked and consequentially have to "pay" for it by me admitting to certain genetic dispositions voluntarily?? If you think that these things are "way out there"you I think that you are sadly mistaken and being mislead. Genetic science and capability are here today-AND we really don't have the laws and ethical compass' set in our society for these advanced technical issues and potential repercussions of current activities and practices.

 

I don't know, maybe it's all semantic as I said earlier since the provider shares costs for any / all tests diagnostics, drugs and or therapies then in the end all of the results are information that is not exclusively confidential. They paid for it then they are entitled to access to it. I guess i feel that if nothing else that information that is shared voluntarily would be alot easier to use (and abuse) than information that had to be garnered by interpreting results from charts. I will probably go ahead and do the assesment after all because I do have a condition which I am managing responsibly and I would like to get my little incentive for doing so. Between myself and the wife we will be eliglible for $400 of credit this year off of our 2200 annual ded. and if it didn't add up to ~25% of our total annual ded. and we weren't going to hit our oop limit-I wouldn't!  This is the first year in the plan and we will probably hit our $5700 OOP maximum. I guess I felt like I wanted to sound off on the subject to get a feel if I am paranoid or just a bit too analytical. So, based on the lack of responses I guess I am a bit alone on this one it appears.

 Any addl. thoughts / comments? rudi...?

melonman 

Melonman, you are not alone. I have been watching this type of activity evolve for the past 40 years.  It is also why I always reply to online polls (I am a member of harris, zogby and a couple of others) that I believe the collection of health information (especially genetic information for yourself or your parents or heirs) will be increasingly used to deny coverage, price coverage or exclude coverage.  I have also always marked as an invasion of privacy the fact that some companies are now starting to require pre employment testing for a variety of health issues including but not limited to family history, aids, and a variety of others.  1984 just took a little longer to get here that we thought it would.  I am also pretty unhappy with the fact that instead of copays we have "discounts".  I can get my local pharmacist to fill my recurring three perscriptions for about 20 percent less than the "discounted" price.  Also as an example, Humana was filling my wifes Tricor (cholestoral drug) for a 30 dollar copay and Medco requires 103.00.  Thank goodness for an hsa to help offset some of this out of pocket expense.  Don't feel alone, a lot of folks are afraid to post because it can and will be tracked back to them and no one wants to be the squeaky wheel that is singled out for "special" treatment.  As I age I will require more and more health services as will we all and with doctors still insisting on all being millionaires it will only get worse.

I am a Registered Nurse who works for a Health Management Company.  We speak to many Lumenos members, as well as members from other insurance groups. Our company does not ever, under any circumstances, report anything that is disclosed during these conversations to the insurance companies or employers. 

You are correct in that my company, and other companies like ours, receive our initial list of members to call based on the claims that have been generated.  In short, we get our names from insurance companies.  But the members name and his condition are the only information that is given to us.  That is the extent of our communication with the insurance companies.

 It is a documented fact that those people enrolled in our health education programs benefit greatly.  Our diabetic members are taught to understand their condition, and the reasons they should control their blood sugars.  We give them advice on diet, exercise and medication management.  In return, these member's blood glucose readings drop dramatically.  Our members with high blood pressure have similar results after learning about their condition and how to manage it.  Blood pressures are decreased with these members as well.

Health management companies like the one I work for is an effort by the insurance companies to educate people on how to maintain or improve their health in order to keep them out of the hospitals and doctor's offices.  Insurance companies are finally realizing that it might prove worthwhile to reach out to people before their conditions become acute and they are spending outrageous amounts of money for one hospital stay after another. 

It is easy to blame insurance companies for the sky rocketing costs of health care.  Costs are high in part because in the past we never had to know, or care, about health costs.  All we ever had to do was pay our copay, or 20% of our medical bill.  We didn't understand in-network or out-of-network providers.  Consumer driven health plans are changing the face of healthcare insurance.  Now we are responsible for chosing who we see for our medical concerns.  We can not only shop for health professionals, but for health facilities.  We are now in the driver's seat.  We do not have to rely on our primary MD to tell us where to go and who to see. 

These plans are our future.  It's time be proactive.  Consumer-driven health plans and health management companies are here to help us conserve our health dollars and give us choices.  It's time to lose the paranoia and take responsibility to improve our health.

There are laws to protect you, if you are part of an employer group you cannot be charged more for your insurance premiums by the insurance company. Your employer may chose to use incentives such as discounts or even cash for filling out the assessments. That is because they know that if the assessment identifies risk factors, management of those can reduce your risk of incurring future health care costs.

Yes, Lora, but why is it not OK for you to cut your health risks by learning ways to stay healthy on these sites? It may cost the insurance company less, but it also saves YOU. I believe that our insurance companies are moving in the proper direction by helping us with preventing diseases.