As a physician, if you haven’t been marketed yet, you might expect some marketing efforts forthcoming soon. In Florida the insurance companies are offering free e-prescribing and I might guess by going through a clearinghouse that this will go directly into the records of one’s medications with the insurance companies. Just recently in the news insurance companies are using your “med rap sheets” for evaluation purposes to qualify individuals for coverage and the premiums they will pay.
“Ingenix, a Minnesota-based health information services company that had $1.3 billion in sales last year -- and Wisconsin-based rival Milliman -- say the drug profiles are an accurate, less expensive alternative to seeking physician records, which can take months and hundreds of dollars to obtain. They note that consumers authorize the data release and that the services can save insurance companies millions of dollars and benefit consumers anxious for a decision.”
I will make mention again of the “free” e-prescribing service that is available to any physician that signs up and now those medications records can be sent to Google Health. I would take this over an option offered by a carrier myself, but to each his own. Those that are already using electronic medical records more than likely are already set up and prepared.
Expect to see more marketing too from the drug stores. Last night I saw a commercial on television marketing the “Walgreens Prescription Club”. Drug stores depend on insurance carriers for much of their revenue thus combination efforts I am guessing will probably grow, the drug stores need the revenue as the number of prescriptions are falling as addressed in the Wall Street Journal , and the insurance companies want the medical rap sheets on all of us.
There might be a large number of doctors hit in the pocketbook too with Pay for Performance issues due to this fact too as one of the criteria elements is based upon whether or not the patients are taking their medicine. Yes, you head that correct, if we don’t take our meds, we can be taking money out of our doctor’s pocket, crazy, yes, but ask almost any primary care HMO doctor and they have heard that on their evaluations that the
compliance rate of patients taking their medications may not be up to par, this is reflects on how effective they are as a doctor.
So if we can’t afford or choose not to take our medications, the Doc can be taking a hit on income too. Aetna has a pilot program going on with a lottery to get folks to take their pills if you can believe that one. You can read more about this here with a prior post. You can also catch my story as posted on Reuters here.
Those $4.00 generic prescriptions also create problems with the physicians looking bad too as they are a great deal for all of us, but being the insurance companies can’t track cash like they can an insurance card you present when getting a prescription, it also makes them look ineffective, but we may be absolutely doing the correct thing and getting what we can afford to take care of ourselves and following doctors orders. BD
Health insurers Humana Inc. and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida are offering free Web-based electronic prescribing software and hardware to physicians in their networks in Florida. The insurers are offering the technology of Prematics Inc., Vienna, Va., delivered through the Availity LLC claims clearinghouse in Jacksonville, Fla. Humana, BCBS of Florida and Health Care Service Corp., which operates Blues plans in Illinois, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, own the clearinghouse.
Free E-Prescribing for Florida Docs
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