Battling The Insurance Industry

From a recent column in the Los Angeles Times (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lazarus-20120918,0,7043400,full.co...):

It would be so easy for health insurers to avoid ill will if they'd just listen to what customers are saying and do their best to respond in a reasonable fashion.

Unfortunately, that's just not how the industry seems to be programmed.

Kevin Roberts, 36, has been battling insurance-industry insensitivity since last year on behalf of his 6-year-old daughter, Aubrey, who has autism.

What should have been a relatively simple matter has ballooned into complaints to the California Department of Managed Health Care, failed attempts at arbitration and a seeming reluctance on the part of Roberts' insurer, Aetna, to simply sit down and hash things out.

"We're basically in limbo," Roberts told me. "All we've wanted is for them to take care of treatment that's covered by our insurance policy. But they won't do it."

California passed a law in October requiring insurers to cover behavioral therapy for autistic kids. But for many families, it can be a long, hard struggle to cover clinic bills, which can total as much as $50,000 annually.

Since the beginning of 2011, the Department of Managed Health Care has received almost 600 complaints against the seven largest health plans over problems with authorizing autism-related treatments.

Kaiser, with about 7 million enrollees, was the subject of the most complaints, 317. Blue Shield, with roughly 2.5 million enrollees, had 69 complaints. Aetna, with slightly more than 800,000 enrollees, had nine.

Roberts' troubles began in February 2011 when a neurologist in Aetna's healthcare provider network prescribed occupational therapy for Aubrey.

This is a form of treatment that focuses on developing motor skills. It's been found to calm autistic kids and help them focus on learning other abilities.

Roberts said his Aetna policy covers 20 visits a year to an in-network occupational therapist. The insurer approved treatment at a clinic near the family's Chino home called United Therapy Network.

But when Roberts and his daughter visited the clinic, they were told that the type of occupational therapy Aubrey required — known as sensory integration therapy — wasn't available at the facility. They were advised to seek another referral from Aetna.

The insurer responded by instructing Roberts to take his daughter back to United Therapy Network. Roberts sent in a letter explaining, again, that the clinic didn't provide the therapy Aubrey needed. He, again, requested another referral.

Aetna insisted that Roberts had to take his daughter to United Therapy Network.

He returned to the clinic and obtained a letter attesting to the fact that the facility couldn't help. He sent it to Aetna with his third request for a referral elsewhere.

Aetna once again told Roberts he had to take his daughter to United Therapy Network.

State investigators would later conclude that Aetna "either ignored or disregarded" Roberts' repeated efforts to follow the insurer's own referral process. It would seem like a Monty Python sketch if it wasn't such a serious matter.

While months were passing with this insane correspondence, Roberts said he learned of another clinic, Big Fun Physical Therapy, that was only five minutes away from his house. It offered the treatment Aubrey required, and as luck would have it, there was a slot open.

So even though he was getting nowhere with Aetna, Roberts did what any concerned parent would do: He started taking his daughter to the facility where she could be helped. Each weekly visit cost $120.

In December, Roberts filed a complaint with the state Department of Managed Health Care over Aetna's apparent refusal to cover the therapy. He then filed a request for arbitration with the American Arbitration Assn., according to the terms of his Aetna contract.

State officials determined in March that "there was no effort" by Aetna to contact United Therapy Network and determine whether it could provide the needed therapy. They said the insurer's actions "had the potential to significantly delay the treatment of a child with autism."

The Department of Managed Health Care ordered Aetna to compensate Roberts for his past costs and to continue covering out-of-network treatment at Big Fun until the end of the year.

What did Aetna have to say? Nothing, according to Roberts.

The company also didn't respond to a request from the arbitration group that it waive a provision of its contract limiting the amount of damages that can be awarded to customers, which the association said was not in keeping with its rules.

As a result of Aetna's refusal to play ball, the arbitration group said it couldn't handle the case.

Anjanette Coplin, an Aetna spokeswoman, told me by email that "we have resolved the benefits dispute with the Roberts family and all claims have been paid and will continue to be paid through Dec. 31, 2012." This is in keeping with the order from state officials.

Coplin said Aetna "originally did not understand the nature of the dispute" because arbitrators hadn't forwarded all necessary paperwork. She said Aetna was now ready to proceed with arbitration.

Asked why Roberts was repeatedly instructed to take his daughter to a facility that didn't offer the needed therapy, Coplin suggested that Roberts didn't correctly follow the referral process — a conclusion that state officials deemed "factually inaccurate."

Aetna is now trying to come to terms with Big Fun so Aubrey can continue receiving treatment at the clinic, Coplin said. But she said negotiations have been stalled by the clinic's insistence that all co-pays be waived.

Roberts said he was told by Big Fun that the actual hang-up was that Aetna was offering "substantially" lower fees than the clinic typically receives for treatment.

If no deal can be reached, he said, he may have to go to another in-network clinic Aetna referred him to — about a 90-minute drive away.

What's so sad is that if someone at Aetna had simply picked up a phone and made one call to United Therapy Network and another to Big Fun, almost two years of hassles probably could have been avoided.

Instead, a family has faced months of needless uncertainty. And a 6-year-old girl still awaits a bureaucratic decision authorizing coverage of easily accessed treatment that could give her a chance at a more normal life.

It would be so easy for insurers to avoid ill will.

If that was something they actually cared about.

Also from the Los Angeles Times this week (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hospital-costs-20120921,0,4069159,...):

Los Angeles Times
September 21, 2012
Cedars-Sinai and UCLA cut from Los Angeles health plan
By Chad Terhune

Two of the most prestigious names in Southern California healthcare — Cedars-Sinai and UCLA — are getting shut out of a major insurance plan for being too expensive.

In a bold cost-cutting move, Anthem Blue Cross has eliminated doctors affiliated with the hospitals from a health plan offered to about 60,000 employees and dependents at the cash-strapped city of Los Angeles.

The city opted for Anthem's plan because it will save $7.6 million in annual premiums next year by excluding physicians from the two institutions known for tending to the Southland's rich and famous.

"Purchasers are sending a signal that certain prices are just unaffordable," said David Lansky, chief executive of the Pacific Business Group on Health, which represents large companies such as Walt Disney Co. "We want great teaching and medical research institutions to survive. Whether that should happen by charging everyone in society a higher rate for routine services is more debatable."

"Implementation of the narrow network was a difficult choice, but one made necessary by the city's fiscal constraints," a city spokesman said. Los Angeles is expected to be the biggest employer to offer Anthem's Select plan.

Officials at Cedars-Sinai and UCLA criticized the rationale for the move, saying the increased costs are tied to their world-class medical research and cutting-edge treatments in areas such as cancer or organ transplants that benefit the entire community.

Thomas Priselac, chief executive of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said these exclusions offer a "false economy" because they don't reduce costs in the healthcare system overall.

"It just pushes the cost onto those who continue getting care at those facilities," Priselac said. "Secondly, it doesn't recognize the reason why places like Cedars and UCLA are more expensive than the typical community hospital."

For its part, UCLA said its hospitals treat a large number of patients in Medi-Cal, the government program for the poor and disabled.

"Other providers don't have to deal with the expenses UCLA has to deal with," said Santiago Muñoz, chief strategy officer for the UCLA Health System.

Anthem isn't alone in pursuing this strategy. Many insurers are aggressively pitching these sharply limited networks, which offer fewer choices and lower-priced doctors and hospitals, as a cost-cutting tool at a time when U.S. health insurance premiums have climbed three times as fast as inflation and wages over the last decade.

Industry giant WellPoint Inc., which owns Anthem Blue Cross in California, offers plans that include as few as 30% of the company's full list of provider.

My comment:

Why is it, when insurance companies talk about reducing cost, that they never point the finger at themselves. The private health insurance business model, as displayed in the first LA Times story, is to deny, defer, and avoid. This is a costly process for the family and the health of the patient. But of course it is a money maker for the insurance company. They keep billions of dollars for extra weeks and months, earn interest on these ill-gotten savings, and may never actually have to pay the claim. It is the rare beneficiary who actually follows through and forces a payment. I am sure that the care at Cedars Sinai and UCLA is more expensive than it should be, probably due to poor quality (a combination of inappropriate care, patient injury, failing to consistently apply clinical science, and inefficiency). I doubt that Anthem really cares about that. Rather, they simply care about what's good for Anthem financially.

One thing that these news stories do point out is how local the problems with health care delivery are. No one in Boston has a dog in this fight. Health care is regionally delivered and should be regionally organized and financed. State by state is the most logical way of organizing these necessary services.

Every family in America can understand the problems of the Roberts family because we all have been hassled by insurers. As stated previously on this blog, we pay health insurers to argue with us, or ignore us, or harm us. But, as the column says, we never expect insurers to care about us.

Dr. Joe Jarvis