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player ready...With the help of some physicians, the health insurance industry is planning a house call on patients in an attempt to sway federal debate over managed-care reform.
The American Association of Health Plans is expected to unveil this week an aggressive television advertising blitz designed to show that most doctors don’t want to resolve disputes with health insurers with litigation.
The ads, which could begin running by the end of the week, will include results of an association-funded national poll showing that 75 percent of physicians would rather subject their health plans’ medical decisions to independent reviews and appeals governed by doctor panels than to lawsuits.
The Washington-based managed-care lobby has budgeted up to $1 million for the campaign, which will include national television spots as well as locally targeted ads in key markets including Chicago, home to the American Medical Association.
While the AMA has been adamant in its support of a bill that would widen malpractice liability from doctors to include insurers, such legislation has stalled in Congress.
But the AMA last year had its own media blitz “house call” on managed-care reform in states where key senators opposed its managed-care reform agenda. Of the four GOP senators targeted in last fall’s election, three lost close races. Now, however, the health plan association is trying to show evidence physicians would rather subject health plans’ medical decisions to independent reviews and appeals rather than lawsuits.
“What people want and doctors want is a simple solution to make health plans accountable and not a health system that is flooded with lawsuits,” said Mark Merritt, vice president and chief strategist for the health plan group.
Managed-care plans are opposed to a patients’ bill of rights, which could open self-insured companies to liability. Currently, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act protects self-insured plans from lawsuits.
But the AMA doesn’t appear to want to cede that option.
AMA board member Dr. Donald Palmisano showed a congressional committee last week an independent poll by the Kaiser Foundation and Harvard University indicating that 75 percent of Americans support patient protections that include the right to sue health plans. Now, it will be up to lawmakers in Washington to find out who is really speaking for the nation’s physicians.
Good provider: When University of Chicago Hospitals chief Ralph Muller last week announced plans to step down from his position, the academic medical center’s longtime leader left the facility operating in far better shape than when he came.
While academic medical centers across the country are bleeding red ink, Muller turned U. of C. from a $21 million-a-year money-loser when he came in 1985 into a profitable operation. The South Side hospital made $14 million on operations last year.
Furthermore, hospital cash and investments have climbed to more than $400 million from less than $40 million when Muller took over.
“I’ve left the place in very good shape,” said the 55-year-old Muller, who will leave the center this summer to take a sabbatical of sorts at a London-based international health-care policy think tank, Health Care Policy Programme at the King’s Fund. “Ever since 1986, we have not had an operating loss.”
Muller also has had a key role in helping the rest of the nation’s teaching hospitals improve their finances.
Muller last year chaired the Association of American Medical Colleges, which worked to restore some federal spending reductions implemented by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. That law was particularly harmful to teaching hospitals, which have the added costs of paying for doctor training and research in addition to patient care.
“It was a widespread effort to get some additional funding for teaching hospitals and we restored $16 billion last year to all hospitals,” Muller said.
Talent search: Not all chief executives are pondering layoffs in the face of a softening economy. Baxter International Inc. Chief Executive Harry Kraemer told investors last week that he spends “more than 50 percent of [his] time developing talent.”
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