Health Insurance Blog

J.D. Power and Associates rating of the top health plans for the South East Central region lists two health plans tied for the top spot for 2009 - Anthem Blue Cross Blue shield of Kentucky and BlueCross BlueShield of Alabama.

CIGNA & Humana finished close behind while still receiving designation as being among the nations best.

Aetna & Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee were rated as “about average” while  United HealthCare and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mississippi were rated below average.

Continuing the coverage of J.D. Power and Associates 2009 health plan ratings, below are their ratings of leading health plans in Colorado.

1. Kaiser Foundation Health Plans was rated the top health plan in Colorado and among the best in the nation.  In addition to this top rating in Colorado, their were also rated tops in California as well.
2. Aetna -For the most part average across the board
3. CIGNA - Rated among the best nationally in terms of provider choice, but simply average in overall experience
4. Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of CO - Rated among the best nationally in terms of provider choice, but simply average in overall experience
5. Great-West HealthCare - below average
6. UnitedHealthCare - below average

More information about Colorado health insurance

According to J.D. Power and Associates, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan was the top rated California health plan based on their 2009 survey.

Based on their survey and analysis of more than 130 health plans nationally (broken up into 17 distinct regions), Kasier Foundation Health plan was the tops in the California region and among the best nationally.

The other health plans from California that were surveyed all performed below average.  They included:  Blue Cross of California, Blue Shield of California, Aetna, HealthNet, Pacificare, and CIGNA.

More information about the J.D. Power 2009 Health Plan Ratings.

More information about California health insurance.

Young healthy adults are attractive targets for health insurance companies.  Consequently some insurers tailor affordable health insurance plans at this segment of the population with individual health plans between $40 and $70 per month.

Two health insurers who offer such products are Aetna (Bodyguard) and Wellpoint (Tonik).  Keep in mind in order to keep monthly premiums low, the insurers have shifted a greater portion of the health care costs to the member, and thus higher out of pocket expenses should be expected.

In a nutshell, the trade-off is lower monthly premiums in exchange for paying a larger amount out of pocket.

These low-cost health plans might be right for you if you are healthy, don’t currently require any perscription drugs and don’t participate in excessively risky activities where severe accidents would be likely.

The top four providers of Florida health insurance recently met to discuss health care under a Barack Obama administration, says Jeremy Cox of the Jacksonville Times-Union. Representatives from Humana, UnitedHealth, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida, and Aetna were in attendance.

The insurers believe that President Obama should enact a health insurance mandate for all Americans if, as they predict, he will require insurers to cover individuals with pre-existing conditions. They think that the cost will be prohibitive for carriers otherwise. At the moment, Obama has not publicly supported a mandate, and how exactly one would be carried out is unknown. He has supported a role for the private sector in universal health care, but that role will most likely be a change from the current market.

Instead of the plans Obama and congressional Democrats have proposed for health care reform, the insurance companies would prefer that the government focus mainly on enrolling eligible but currently uninsured individuals in federal-run programs like Medicaid and Medicare, Jeremy says. While the insurance companies agreed that greater coverage is a priority, they claim the task of covering other Americans should be left to them through innovative new plans.

The top North Carolina health insurance plans as ranked by US News and World report’s annual health plan ranking report are displayed below.  Of particular note is that a number of health insurers including the states oldest and largest health insurance company, BCBSNC, have chosen to not supply internal data that is required to provide accurate health plan rankings.  As a result, BCBSNC, as well other North Carolina health plans were not included in the 2008 rankings.

The top North Carolina health plans that particiapted in this report are

1. CIGNA Healthcare of North Carolina
2. Aetna Health of the Carolinas
3. UnitedHealthcare of North Carolina

Following up on a story reported a couple of days ago, UnitedHealth Group has agreed to pay $350 Million to settle a billing dispute related to out of network claims.  In addition, UnitedHealth pledged $50 Million and Aetna $20 Million to create a new database to determine our of network claims payment.  The previous database that was used was operated by Ingenix, a UnitedHealth subsidiary which was at the center of the dispute.

The Ingenix database, contained claims payment data that is contributed by health insurance companies.  The data is then used to set “usual and customary” charges for certain procedures, when members receive care outside of their network.

The lawsuit alleged that health insurance companies lowered the payment data when adding to the database, which allowed them to lower payments for future claims.  The patient would then be billed the difference.

An investigation by the New York Attorney General’s Office found that health insurers had underpaid by 10-28% as a result of the inaccurate data in the database.

TradingMarkets.com reports that Aetna health insurance has made improvements to NYC Community Plan, its slate of health care offerings for small business owners and their employees. The plan, launched one year ago, is intended to make New York health insurance more accessible for groups that are traditionally underserved. It’s currently available in the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn, Manhattan, Staten Island, the Bronx, and Queens. Hopefully, Aetna will soon introduce similar products in other markets.

Changes to the plan include:

• unlimited generic pharmacy benefits in a calendar year
• discounts on branded medications
• lower co-payments for hospital visits

With cooperation from doctors, hospitals, and other providers, Aetna has actually managed to lower premiums of small business health insurance to as little as $243 per month!

(Photo credit: fergusonphotography under CC 2.0)

Aetna Health Insurance and BayCare Health Systems have resolved a contract dispute that would have reduced health care access for over 300,000 patients in the Tampa, Florida area. Stephen Nohlgren of the St. Petersburg Times says that if BayCare and Aetna didn’t settle their issues, Aetna insurance would no longer be accepted by BayCare hospitals after the current contract expires on December 31st. Patients would then have had to deal with the scary prospect of scrambling for new hospitals and doctors.

As of this Wednesday both parties have reached a 3-year agreement that will keep the BayCare hospitals in Aetna’s network, Stephen reports. BayCare owns most of the major hospitals in the Tampa/St. Petersburg region; most notably the Morton Plant, St. Joseph’s, Mease and St. Anthony’s hospitals. Details about the deal haven’t been released, but this agreement will surely lessen the year-end worries of some Tampa health insurance consumers.

In the 2008 US News and World Report health plan rankings report, only three Oklahoma health plans were ranked.  In addition, none of the three fared particularly well.  The top ranked health plan for Oklahoma residents according to the report was Aetna Health, which ranked 174th nationally and only received two stars of a possible five in the categories of both prevention and treatment.

Customers were more kind to Aetna as they received 4 of 5 stars in comsumer assessment.  The 2nd and 3rd ranked plans were Pacificare of Oklahoma, and Global Health respectively.

Similarly, US News and Word Report’s ranking of Nebraska’s top health plans were very sparce as well as they only ranked 1 health plan, UnitedHealthCare of the MIdlands who ranked 137th nationally.