|
|
"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
|
Case against Blue Cross shows difficulty of cutting health costs
|
|---|
| Parent(s) |
Issue
|
| Contributor | particleman |
| Last Edited | particleman Nov 09, 2010 11:26pm |
| Logged |
0
|
| Category | News |
| Author | Alison Young |
| Media | Newspaper - USA Today |
| News Date | Wednesday, November 10, 2010 05:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | As health care costs soared nationally, a small Michigan firm gave Ford Motor Co. a proposal to cut its physical therapy costs. The automaker signed up for an in-state pilot program, which was so successful Ford expanded it last year to cover about 390,000 employees, retirees and their families nationwide.
Yet the cost-saving program created by Pontiac-based TheraMatrix has come under attack from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. Court records allege Blue Cross used its position as the state's dominant insurer to try to crush TheraMatrix as it worked to also sign up Chrysler and General Motors.
"They tried to destroy us," says Robert Whitton, a physical therapist who founded TheraMatrix in 1981. TheraMatrix has cut Ford's physical therapy costs by about half, Whitton says, saving millions of dollars annually.
Blue Cross denies trying to hurt TheraMatrix's business. "The picture that they're trying to paint is the big whatever giant with a chainsaw in his hand coming down on the little guy," Jeffrey Rumley, Blue Cross' general counsel, told USA TODAY. "I just don't buy into that too easily."
The dispute provides a window into some of the factors that make overhauling the nation's health care system so difficult. The aggressive tactics employed against TheraMatrix raise questions about whether relationships between hospitals and insurers are inflating medical prices and stifling competition needed to control costs.
Court records depict Blue Cross — a non-profit created under Michigan law to provide affordable health care — as working with a major hospital to stop expansion of TheraMatrix's program. They also reveal that Blue Cross barred TheraMatrix from the insurer's medical provider network, which covers most Michigan patients.
A Detroit-area jury awarded TheraMatrix $4.5 million in July, finding that Blue Cross breached an agreement with TheraMatrix to process claims for its Ford program, then wrongfully interfered with TheraMatrix's efforts |
| Share |
|
|
2¢
|
|
| Article | Read Full Article |
|
| Date |
Category |
Headline |
Article |
Contributor |
|
|
