Comments on: Does preventive health care save money?

By: Phyllis

Phyllis — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:59:03 +0000

I am in the medical benefit end of insurance for years. Problems with the wellness dr. visits is that they “almost always find something wrong” and the definition of “healthy” has narrowed to the degree that no one fits into the “healthy” category. Once you are diagnosed with a “condition” no matter how minute and questionable rates increase, and should you need to come off group and get inividual coverage you could be denied or ridered. This topic is questionable even in our industry. Once you are diagnosed with a “condition”, even if temporary, it can stay on your medical record for years. Same with any drugs you take. Very tricky topic. A lot of insurance carriers now give rewards of airline tickets etc for wellness care. Then if they discover you have a “condition” from the wellness visit up goes the rates. However the other view is that wellness visits can discover health issues. Toss up in our industry. Question in our industry-do insurance carriers promote wellness visits to discover things to increase rates or do they really care about staying healthy?

By: mradcliff

mradcliff — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 06:50:19 +0000

Wellness Proposals
http://www.wellnessproposals.com Wellness Proposals

By: Heidi

Heidi — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 04:07:43 +0000

This is a little off topic, but more companies are introducing wellness programs along with preventative care – they know that employees who exercise and eat well will cost them much less in claims over the years than unhealthy workers.

Many firms with wellness programs offer rebates on health insurance premiums if participants go to annual in-house physicals where they check your blood pressure, weight, flexibilty, BMI, blood sugar and cholesterol. It’s a way for companies to play ‘big brother’ and anticipate/control health care costs.

By: Fred

Fred — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:35:48 +0000

It seems to me that preventative medicine would not really save all that much. People still have to die of something. Therefore, you are just pushing off the time until the medical expenses will start to add up.

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 23:10:37 +0000

I had to get a physical for work a few years ago. I work for a defense contractor and I was going to Kuwait for a couple months, so I had to get medical and dental certification, as well as a whole bunch of vaccinations. My doctor said that Blue Cross wouldn’t cover a physical unless I had some sort of physical ailment which might require a physical *wink, wink, nudge, nudge*. I said “Hmm, I don’t feel so good, nothing specific, I just don’t feel good.” He nodded, said “Mmmm Hmmm,” and gave me a physical, including blood work and an EKG. I only had to pay the $20 copay.

By: Jerry Dill

Jerry Dill — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:51:46 +0000

I hate statistical items. Even though it is based of of real life scenarios it is so unrellevent to you as an individual. Maybe the team of “experts” should quit taking the skewed results and charging us more than we need to pay.

By: Foobarista

Foobarista — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:25:12 +0000

Large-scale healthcare accounting has one implicit factor in it that complicates these discussions: the fact that saving someone’s life and letting them live longer is considered an “expense”. Preventing an illness or finding a condition that could kill you and getting it treated is often more expensive than missing it and dying before finding it in these calculations.

Also, if you die young, you don’t have expensive end-of-life care…

By: kitty

kitty — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:19:50 +0000

“Mo” Money – the article referenced in the blog was in a reputable journal. Medical studies in general are normally done by epidemiologists, not actuaries employed by insurance companies. The actuaries don’t have knowledge to understand the implications of, for example, testing healthy people. Actuaries don’t need to learn medical statistics. They can estimate amount of claims for certain conditions, but estimating how many people needs to be treated for how many years requires control studies – and this is what epidemiologists do.

There are also additional consideration for insurers. For example, one reason insurers like to know about problems early is that this way they can identify people who are likely to have problems. They may not do it if you get insurance from employer, but if you buy individual insurance, they may be very interested in how expensive you are likely to be for them in future.

So, it isn’t at all obvious that insurance companies’ pay for checkups because they have real data about cost-savings that a medical journal doesn’t.

By: "Mo" Money

"Mo" Money — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:26:26 +0000

Usually insurance companies have the statistics for all kinds of information. I would bank on their analysis as being correct.

By: Angela

Angela — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:18:25 +0000

It doesn’t surprise me but I would definately still want my yearly exam. I want whatever could be caught early to know about it as early as possible so that I may have the best chances of beating it. My Dad didn’t catch his colon cancer until he was 48 years old and it was stage 3. They felt at that point he had already had it five years. He lived 6 years after the initial diagnosis and fought the cancer two more times before dying of it.