Reducing Healthcare Costs; Surgery at a Selected Hospital and Pharma Tourism

Individuals and self-insured companies have adopted various strategies to reduce the rising cost of healthcare for themselves and their employees. A recent article discussed howWalmart was flying employees who were candidates for particular surgical procedures to selected, distant hospitals for evaluation (see:Walmart Flies Employees to Top Hospitals for Surgeries in a Bid to Cut Healthcare Costs). Below is an excerpt from it:Walmart ’s answer [to rising healthcare costs] is its six-year-oldCenters of Excellence (COE) program. In partnership with third-party administrator Health Design Plus (HDP), Walmart directly contracts with the following leading medical centers for procedures, such as hip or knee replacements, heart or back surgery, or cancer treatments: Cleveland Clinic in Ohio; Geisinger Medical Center in Pennsylvania; Mayo Clinic in Arizona, Florida, and Minnesota; and Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle. Patients incur no out-of-pocket costs for travel to a COE facility and most plan procedures and consultations are fully covered. Until 2018, the COE program was optional for Walmart employees. Now, employees may be on the hook for the entire cost if they opt to have a covered procedure performed locally....General Electric, Lowe ’s, McKesson, and Boeing also are directly contracting with high-quality healthcare providers to control costs and improve outcomes.In Utah, medical tourism of another kind is bringing down employer healthcare costs....[A] state prog...
Source: Lab Soft News - Category: Laboratory Medicine Authors: Tags: Cost of Healthcare Healthcare Innovations Healthcare Insurance Medical Consumerism Pharmaceutical Industry Public Health Quality of Care Source Type: blogs