ok, as I am preparing to enter residency in a matter of hours I must admit to watching battles being fought out between physicians and the insurance industry.

While docs (and hospitals) where up in arms about being rated by people (and at one time the insurance industry themselves, but I believe it that was squashed due to conflict of interest, pls correct me) the AMA decided to give insurance a taste of their own medicine- no pun intended!

I am a little belated getting through my google reader  yet came across this article in medheadlines and had to put it up…

The insurers routinely grade the performance of healthcare providers and the American Medical Association (AMA) announced earlier today that they have done the same, with the insurance companies’ performance up for evaluation.

Processing claims for submission to the insurance providers is creating a logjam of paperwork and data processing in healthcare facilities across the country, with the AMA estimating an annual cost of $210 billion to cover the cost of excessive handling procedures involved in filing claims.  A growing number of doctors are either leaving medical practice or opting out of the medical insurance system and working on a cash basis with patients instead in order to reduce the heavy burden of time and expense increasingly required to work with healthcare providers.

According to the AMA’s report card, Medicare is more likely to pay the rates they contracted to pay.  Accurate payment from Medicare happens about 98% of the time.  Aetna’s rate of accuracy is 71% and UnitedHealthcare scored lowest, at 62%.

Stay tuned for your next episode of As The Stethescope Turns…