It used to be axiomatic in Medicare Advantage as in commercial health insurance that the way to get high enrollment was to have the thickest-possible provider directory. But the deep and long U.S. economic recession appears to have changed this. From what insurance brokers tell AIS, seniors increasingly are willing to trade off some access for lower out-of-pocket costs.
That seems to be what Health Net, Inc. is betting on in the Phoenix and Tucson, Ariz., areas, where it introduced for 2013 a Ruby Select product that essentially has one provider system as its network except for specialist physicians. In Phoenix, it’s Banner Health, and in Tucson it’s Carondolet Health Network. Health Net is thereby trying the same strategy that has worked well for a competitor, the CareMore unit of WellPoint, Inc., which has grown rapidly in Tucson over the past three years with a network based on Carondolet and has 9,223 MA members there as of the October CMS enrollment report.
Denise Early, a partner in the Medicare Choices of Arizona insurance brokerage in Tucson, tells AIS CareMore’s local broker-trainer advised her firm that people are signing up for its plans because of the low copayments it can offer in the narrow network, and not for the network itself.
Are you also seeing this in other MA markets? Has there been a big change in beneficiary attitudes because of the recession? And if so, is this a good change or one that may prove “dollar-wise but pound-foolish” down the road?
No comments:
Post a Comment