![\"Insurance\"](\"http:\/\/s.wsj.net\/media\/insurance_D_20100125084840.jpg\")
WellPoint’s efforts to control medical costs include “more aggressive” contract negotiations with health-care providers and the somewhat euphemistically described \u0093medical management levers,\u0094 according to a Thomson Reuters transcript of the insurer’s call with analysts.<\/p>\n
The Health Blog caught up with Wayne S. DeVeydt, WellPoint’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, to ask for more details. DeVeydt said that some hospitals have been seeking increases of as much as 50% in payments from insurers. Employers are increasingly willing to consider allowing the insurer to drop a hospital from its local network of providers if the hospital’s rates can\u0092t be brought to an acceptable level and there are other options in the community, he said.<\/p>\n
DeVeydt added that WellPoint is getting more support from employers if a hospital complains to state regulators that the insurer isn’t providing an adequate network for members. “We\u0092re trying to make sure that the regulator knows the consumer view isn\u0092t just the hospital view,” but also the employer\u0092s view, he said. <\/p>\n
Employers are also increasingly open to various cost-saving tactics, including pre-authorization requirements, Mr. DeVeydt said. As an example, he referred to efforts to avoid unnecessary imaging scans.<\/p>\n
WellPoint’s fourth-quarter profit jumped on a one-time $3.8 billion gain from the sale of its in-house pharmacy benefits management business. For more on the company’s earnings, read the story from Dow Jones Newswires.Read the story from Dow Jones Newswires<\/a>.<\/p>\n Bonus Cost<\/strong>: Another big insurer, UnitedHealth, wants to cut payments to a group of New York hospitals by 50% when they fail to notify the insurer within 24 hours after a patient is admitted. The hospitals say the penalty is excessive; the insurer says it’s necessary to better manage patients and control costs, according to the New York Times<\/a>, which reported on the story a few days back.<\/p>\n Photo: iStockphoto<\/em><\/p>\n WellPoint’s efforts to control medical costs include “more aggressive” contract negotiations with health-care providers and the somewhat euphemistically described \u0093medical management levers,\u0094 according to a Thomson Reuters transcript of the insurer’s call with analysts. The Health Blog caught up with Wayne S. DeVeydt, WellPoint’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, to ask for more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-239135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/img><\/a>
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