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PubMedDate not supplied

Disability benefits: what is the Social Security Administration thinking?

This article briefly describes decision-making standards and procedures used by the Social Security Administration in adjudicating disability insurance benefits claims. Correlatively, the article addresses and dispels some of the myths surrounding various outcomes of disability claims. It also describes the role of the treating physician and how a treating physician who wants to help his or her patient obtain disability benefits should respond to Social Security's requests for medical records and written reports.

Adult↗
PubMed1991

Medicare program; conditional designation of States in which Medicare SELECT insurance policies may be issued--HCFA. General notice with comment period.

This notice announces the Secretary's conditional determination of the 15 States in which Medicare supplemental insurance policies (commonly referred to as "Medigap" policies) may be issued as Medicare SELECT policies. The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 (OBRA '90), Public Law 101-508, amended section 1882 of the Social Security Act to provide for the simplification and standardization of Medicare supplemental insurance policies and to authorize the approval of Medicare SELECT policies in fifteen States, as determined by the Secretary, for a three-year period. Under State-approved Medicare SELECT policies, insurers may restrict full Medicare supplemental insurance benefits to items and services provided by a network of physicians and providers under contract with the insurer. This notice implements section 4358(c) of OBRA '90, which provides for the designation of the 15 States in which Medicare SELECT policies may be approved for issuance during the period January 1, 1992 through December 31, 1994.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, U.S.↗
PubMed1984

Private health insurance: new measures of a complex and changing industry.

Private health insurance benefit payments are an integral component of estimates of national health expenditures. Recent analyses indicate that the insurance industry has undergone significant changes since the mid-1970's. As a result of these study findings and corresponding changes to estimating techniques, private health insurance estimates have been revised upward. This has had a major impact on national health expenditure estimates. This article describes the changes that have occurred in the industry, discusses some of the implications of those changes, presents a new methodology to measure private health insurance and the resulting estimate levels, and then examines concepts that underpin these estimates.

Evaluation Studies as Topic↗
PubMed1983

The INSURE Project on Lifecycle Preventive Health Services: cost containment issues.

The INSURE Project on Lifecycle Preventive Health Services (LPHS) is a three-year feasibility study to determine whether preventive health services can be implemented in the primary medical care setting as a covered health insurance benefit and what the short-term behavioral effects will be on physicians and their patients. Thus far, the negotiated reasonable and customary fees that have been paid are lower than anticipated. Patients have expressed a willingness to pay extra for preventive care insurance coverage if it were available. The positive reactions of providers and consumers and the reasonable cost of LPHS may prove to be more crucial than broader cost containment issues in determining the extent of health insurance coverage for preventive care in the future.

Cost Control↗
PubMed1989

[Doctors' assessment of occupational injuries. Regulations and working methods].

Many medical practitioners deal with occupational injuries and diseases. Norwegian employees, military servicemen, fishermen, students and schoolchildren are entitled to specific social insurance benefits in the event of occupational injury (injury at school) or occupational disease. In most cases the social insurance office requires a medical assessment from the doctor. Adequate knowledge of the social insurance regulations and good working methods for medical assessment contribute to fair administrative decisions and help the doctor to deal with such cases. The authors present the part of the regulations most relevant for medical practitioners, and describe suitable working methods.

Accidents, Occupational↗
PubMed2001

Avoiding health insurance crowd-out: evidence from the Medicare as secondary payer legislation.

The cost of expanding health insurance coverage increases when people who would otherwise purchase insurance obtain public coverage. This paper investigates the effects of one of the first efforts to target insurance benefits to the most needy, the 1982 medicare as secondary payer (MSP) provisions. We find strong evidence of low compliance with the MSP both in terms of medical bill payments (payment compliance) and employer-sponsored insurance coverage (coverage compliance). We estimate payer compliance at approximately 33%. Coverage compliance is lower, at under 25%. We find weak evidence that the MSP caused older workers to shift toward MSP-exempt jobs.

Aged↗
PubMed1998

Mental health and substance abuse parity: a case study of Ohio's state employee program.

BACKGROUND: In the United States, insurance benefits for treating alcohol, drug abuse and mental health (ADM) problems have been much more limited than medical care benefits. To change that situation, more than 30 states were considering legislation that requires equal benefits for ADM and medical care ("parity") in the past year. Uncertainty about the cost consequences of such proposed legislation remains a major stumbling block. There has been no information about the actual experience of implementing parity benefits under managed care or the effects on access to care and utilization. AIMS OF THE STUDY: Document the experience of the State of Ohio with adopting full parity for ADM care for its state employee program under managed care. Ohio provides an unusually long time series with seven years of managed behavioral health benefits, which allows us to study inflationary trends in a plan with unlimited ADM benefits. METHODS: Primarily a case study, we describe the implementation of the program and track utilization, and costs of ADM care from 1989 to 1997. We use a variety of administrative and claims data and reports provided by United Behavioral Health and the state of Ohio. The analysis of the utilization and cost effect of parity and managed care is pre-post, with a multiyear follow-up period. RESULTS: The switch from unmanaged indemnity care to managed carve-out care was followed by a 75% drop in inpatient days and a 40% drop in outpatient visits per 1000 members, despite the simultaneous increase in benefits. The subsequent years saw a continuous decline in inpatient days and an increased use of intermediate services, such as residential care and intensive outpatient care. The number of outpatient visits stabilized in the range of 500-550 visits per 1000. There was no indication that costs started to increase during the study period; instead, costs continued to decline. A somewhat different picture emerges when comparing utilization under HMOs with utilization under a carve-out with expanded benefits. In that case, the expansion of benefits led to a significant jump in outpatient utilization and intermediate services, while there was a small decrease in inpatient days. Insurance payments in 1996/1997 were almost identical to the estimated costs under HMOs in 1993. CONCLUSIONS: In contrast to the emerging inflation anxiety regarding overall health care costs, managed care can provide long-run cost containment for ADM care even when patient copayments are reduced and coverage limits are lifted. This may differentiate ADM care from medical care and reasons for this difference include the state of management techniques (more advanced for ADM care), complexity of treatments (much higher technology utilization in medical care) and demographic factors (medical, but not behavioral health, costs increase as the population ages). IMPLICATIONS FOR HEALTH POLICY: The experience of the state of Ohio demonstrates that parity level benefits for ADM care are affordable under managed care. It suggests that the concerns about costs that have stymied ADM policy proposals are unfounded, as long as one is willing to accept managed care. IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH: The continuing decline in costs raises concerns that levels of care may become insufficient. While concerns about costs being too high dominate the policy hurdle for parity legislation at this moment, the next step in research is to address quality of care or health outcomes, areas about which even less is known than about costs.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1976

Issues in national health insurance.

Health insurance, by reducing net price to the consumer and increasing the opportunities for revenue to the provider, has profound effects, among other things, on the volume, content and distribution of services, their prices, and the capacity of providers to produce them. The magnitude and nature of these effects depend, partly, on the design of insurance benefits and, partly, on the nature of the health care system, particularly its current and potential capacity and the methods it uses to pay providers. Those who believe that the unique aim of insurance is to protect against unpredictable expenses attempt to suppress these effects, mainly by imposing financial disincentives to utilization which, in turn, reduce protection for those who need it most. Those who wish to reform the system have a broader range of objectives which include protective efficacy, cost control, quantitative adequacy, qualitative adequacy, efficiency of production, efficiency of allocation, equity, and redistribution of capacity. An analysis of the effects of insurance in the light of these objectives reveals favorable as well as unfavorable consequences. The provision of comprehensive benefits generates the necessity for a fundamental change in the organization of health services, if the advantages are to be fully realized and the disadvantages minimized.

Deductibles and Coinsurance↗
PubMed1981

Effect of the Rennie decision on private hospitalization in New Jersey: two case reports.

The Rennie decision in New Jersey on the right to refuse treatment has been extended from public mental health programs to private psychiatric hospitals where conditions are very different from those which engendered the decision. This ripple effect may result in therapeutic delay, increased cost, possible general medical neglect, family turmoil, and misuse or loss of insurance benefits. The two cases described by the author resulted in expenditures of more than $30,000 by the patients and their insurers. The author criticizes the policy of using independent psychiatrists to review treatment in private hospitals. He believes that if the right to refuse treatment is maintained, prompt judicial review without prior restraining orders should be public policy.

Bipolar Disorder↗
PubMed1994

The willingness to pay for in vitro fertilization: a pilot study using contingent valuation.

The use of in vitro fertilization (IVF) has increased rapidly in recent years and debate has focused on whether health insurance should cover the procedure. We developed and disseminated a contingent valuation survey to investigate how individuals value IVF treatment. Couples pursuing in vitro fertilization can be viewed as purchasing an increased probability of conceiving and bearing a child. In our survey, respondents were asked if they would pay stated amounts for IVF, under various assumptions about the probability of success. The survey explores the ex post perspective, (respondents' willingness to pay (WTP) for IVF in the event that they are infertile), the ex ante perspective, (WTP for IVF insurance, assuming respondents do not know their infertility status), WTP for a public IVF program, and how respondents value IVF relative to mortality risk reduction. Among 150 respondents who were potential childbearers, average WTP was $17,730 for a 10% chance at having a child through IVF in the event of infertility. Average WTP was $865 for a lifetime insurance benefit providing access to a 10% chance. Among 231 respondents of all ages, average WTP was $32 per year in taxes for a public program giving 1,200 couples per year in Massachusetts a 10% chance. The estimated implied ex post WTP per statistical baby was $177,730, while ex ante WTP per statistical baby was $1.8 million. The results of regression analyses were consistent with theoretical predictions, (e.g., increasing WTP with household income). The contingent valuation method is a potentially useful tool in understanding how people value the benefits of IVF. Further research is needed to test the validity of this methodology.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

Financing long-term care: employee needs and attitudes, and the employer's role.

Because of increasing life expectancies, high costs for nursing home and home health care, declining levels of informal family care, and the stated policy of the federal and state governments to foster self-reliance, individuals are increasingly exposed to the risk of financial ruin from long-term care (LTC) expenses. Yet, because of psychological barriers and aversions, particularly to thinking about residing in a nursing home, most individuals have not purchased LTC insurance. Hence, it may be the responsibility of employers to provide education to employees about LTC and to sponsor either individual or group plans of LTC insurance. Educational efforts may be particularly effective at the time of retirement when employees are in a more serious mood to consider the contingencies of retired life. A formal and perhaps more economical response for employers would be to offer combined life annuity and LTC insurance benefits through the retirement plan, provided certain regulatory and tax barriers can be removed.

Aged↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The INSURE project on lifecycle preventive health services.

The INSURE Project on Lifecycle Preventive Health Services is a 3-year study to determine the feasibility of implementing preventive services in primary medical care as a health insurance benefit and to assess the short-term impact of this implementation on providers and consumers. Initiated by the life and health insurance companies, the project has received additional support from private philanthropic foundations. Preventive services, which will be provided under a lifecycle approach according to the age and sex of the patient and include education of patients on health-related behavior, will range from prenatal care through geriatrics. A quasi-experimental design will be used in which three study (experimental) group practice sites are matched with three control group practice sites. At the study sites, the primary care physicians will participate in orientation sessions on recommended preventive services and patient education procedure; they will also examine and counsel the study patients. The study and control physicians and patients will be surveyed before and after the program of intervention is conducted at the study sites to assess their knowledge, attitudes, and behavior toward health behavior practices.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Patient choice of providers in a preferred provider organization.

This article is an analysis of patient choice of providers by the employees of the Security Pacific Bank of California and their dependents who have access to the Med Network Preferred Provider Organization (PPO). The empirical results show that not only is the PPO used by individuals who require relatively little medical care (as measured by predicted office visit charges) but that the PPO is most intensively used for low-risk services such as treatment for minor illness and preventive care. Also, the most likely Security Pacific Health Care beneficiary to use a PPO provider is a recently hired employee who lives in the south urban region, has a relatively low income, does not have supplemental insurance coverage, and is without previous attachments to non-PPO primary care providers. In order to maximize their ability to reduce plan paid benefits, insurers who contract with PPOs should focus on increasing PPO utilization among poorer health risks.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

The impact of Medicaid on physician use by low-income children.

This study evaluated the determinants of physician use by low-income children, with an emphasis on the effect of Medicaid. Data are from the 1980 National Medical Care Utilization and Expenditure Survey. Regression analysis revealed that Medicaid children were more likely than both privately insured and uninsured children to visit an office-based physician. Also, Medicaid children with at least one visit to any setting had a higher number of visits than uninsured children. Such factors as age, health status, number of children in the family, educational status, and income also accounted for differences within the low-income population. The results suggest that access to physicians' services (including office-based physicians) can be increased by expanding Medicaid eligibility to uninsured low-income children and by improving private health insurance benefits among the underinsured.

Adolescent↗