Health Plan Executives Have Unique Opportunity to Experience the Power of Health Messages Through the Eyes of the ...

Wed, Jun 20, 2012, 11:35 AM EDT - U.S. Markets close in 4 hrs 25 mins

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

CHS Partners with HealthyCircles to Improve the Health Care Patient/Provider Experience

Thu, Feb 23, 2012, 1:36 PM EST - U.S. Markets close in 2 hrs 24 mins

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here

Health Plans Provide the Worst Customer Experience, According to New Temkin Group Research

WABAN, Mass., Feb. 20, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- A new research report published by Temkin Group, 2012 Temkin Experience Ratings, rates the customer experience of 206 large companies across 18 industries. This is the second year that Temkin Group has released these ratings.

The research, which is based on a survey of 10,000 U.S. consumers in January 2012, includes 13 health plans. Kaiser Permanente was the top-rated health plan, the only plan to receive an "okay" rating, but it only ranked 87th in the overall ratings. TriCare, Medicare, Aetna, United Healthcare, Humana, Empire BCBS, Blue Shield of CA, and CIGNA all received "poor" ratings. Four plans received "very poor" ratings and are ranked in the bottom seven across all 18 industries: Highmark BCBS, Health Net, Medicaid, and Anthem BCBS.

Health plans represented the lowest-rated industry, and only one of three industries to receive an average rating of "poor." The industry, however, experienced a modest improvement between 2011 and 2012.

"It's troubling that only one health plan can even achieve an okay rating; the entire industry needs a customer experience wake-up call. While it's great to see some improvement, it's not enough," states Bruce Temkin, author of the report and Managing Partner of Temkin Group.

The Temkin Experience Ratings evaluates three dimensions of customer experience:

Functional: Does the company meet consumers' needs?Accessible: How easy is it for consumers to do what they are trying to do?Emotional: How do consumers feel about their interactions with companies?

Other highlights from the research include:

Kaiser Permanente and TriCare received the highest Functional ratings, while Highmark BCBS and Health Net received the lowest.Kaiser Permanente and Aetna received the highest Accessible ratings, while Medicaid, Health Net, and Highmark BCBS received the lowest.Kaiser Permanente and TriCare received the highest Emotional ratings, while Highmark BCBS and Health Net received the lowest.Ten health plans were included in both the 2011 and 2012 Temkin Experience Ratings. Kaiser Permanente had a double-digit improvement in its score while five other plans increased their score by five or more points: Anthem BCBS, Aetna, United Healthcare, CIGNA, and Humana.TriCare was the only health plan to slip by five points or more between 2011 and 2012, but Medicaid and Medicare also declined.

This report can be accessed from the Temkin Group website at http://www.temkingroup.com or from the blog, Customer Experience Matters, at http://experiencematters.wordpress.com. The data can be accessed from the Temkin Ratings website, http://www.temkinratings.com.

For more information about Temkin Group, visit http://www.temkingroup.com.

About the author, Bruce Temkin

Bruce is widely recognized as a customer experience thought leader and is Customer Experience Transformist and Managing Partner of the Temkin Group. He is also the author of a very popular blog, Customer Experience Matters. Prior to forming Temkin Group, he was a VP at Forrester Research for 12 years. Bruce is a highly demanded speaker who consistently receives high marks for his content-rich, entertaining keynote addresses. He is also the co-founder and Chair of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA.org), a global non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of customer experience management.

About Temkin Group

Temkin Group is a leading customer experience research and consulting firm with one simple goal for its clients: increase customer loyalty by becoming more customer-centric. The company combines customer experience thought leadership with a deep understanding of the dynamics of large organizations to help senior executives accelerate their customer experience results. For more information, contact Bruce Temkin at 617-916-2075 or info@temkingroup.com.

This press release was issued through eReleases(R).  For more information, visit eReleases Press Release Distribution at http://www.ereleases.com.

View the original article here

Massachusetts Health Experience: What the Nation Can Expect?

Mitt Romney may not like to hear it, but if you want to know what health reform will look like for the United States, look to what’s happening in Massachusetts, a team of experts said on Wednesday.

An analysis in the journal Health Affairs shows the 2006 Massachusetts health reform initiative has, not unexpectedly, gotten health insurance coverage to most of the state’s residents. It has cut emergency-room visits and people say they feel they are healthier than before the law passed.

But costs are rising, and the national debate about the 2010 health reform law has hardened positions. Massachusetts residents who were once neutral about the law now say they oppose it, the study found.

“Just as Massachusetts’ 2006 health reform legislation provided the template for the Affordable Care Act, so the state’s experience under that legislation provides an example of the potential gains under federal health reform. It is likely that the path to near-universal coverage nationally will be slower and bumpier than it was for Massachusetts in 2006,” Sharon Long of the University of Minnesota and two graduate student colleagues wrote. “Yet the findings for Massachusetts are a reminder that major gains in coverage and associated benefits are possible.”

In 2005, an estimated 11.4 percent of Massachusetts adults under the age of 65 went without health insurance – below the national estimate of 15 percent. But the health reform law then-governor Mitt Romney signed in 2006 helped more people get covered. “Health insurance coverage among nonelderly adults in Massachusetts was at 94.2 percent in 2010,” Long’s team reported.

Long’s team used the Massachusetts Health Reform Survey, which collects information from 3,000 new adults ages 19 to 64.5 every year. They found the Massachusetts legislation met its two main goals of increasing access to health insurance and creating a new standard that health plans must meet to count as coverage under the individual mandate.

“The ‘minimum creditable coverage’ standard includes coverage for a comprehensive set of services (including prescription drugs); doctor visits for preventive care, without a deductible; limits on out-of-pocket spending; and no caps on total benefits for a particular illness or a single year. Both paths were expected to lower the costs of health care to individuals and, thereby, increase access to and use of care,” they wrote.

And this did happen. “For example, in 2010 compared to 2006, nonelderly adults were more likely to have a usual place to go when they were sick or needed advice about their health (up 4.7 percentage points), and were more likely to have had a preventive care visit (up 5.9 percentage points), a specialist visit (up 3.7 percentage points), multiple doctor visits (up 5 percentage points; and a dental care visit (up 5  percentage points),” they wrote.

There was a small drop in emergency room visits as well. But all was not rosy.

“Despite the 2010 gains in access relative to 2006, 22.8 percent of nonelderly adults in Massachusetts reported that they did not get needed care in 2010,” Long’s team wrote. “It is likely that the economic downturn and the continuing increase in health care costs, in particular, dampened any gains in coverage and affordability that might otherwise have been achieved under health reform in the state.”

Opposition to reform hardened, likely as a result of the national debate. Republicans have kept up a constant drumbeat of criticism of the national health reform law, with even Romney promising to work to repeal it if elected.

“And although nearly two-thirds of adults continue to support reform, among nonsupporters there has been a marked shift from a neutral position toward opposition (17  percent opposed to reform in 2006 compared with 26.9 percent in 2010),” Long’s team wrote.

View the original article here

Massachusetts Health Experience: What the Nation Can Expect?

Mitt Romney may not like to hear it, but if you want to know what health reform will look like for the United States, look to what’s happening in Massachusetts, a team of experts said on Wednesday.

An analysis in the journal Health Affairs shows the 2006 Massachusetts health reform initiative has, not unexpectedly, gotten health insurance coverage to most of the state’s residents. It has cut emergency-room visits and people say they feel they are healthier than before the law passed.

But costs are rising, and the national debate about the 2010 health reform law has hardened positions. Massachusetts residents who were once neutral about the law now say they oppose it, the study found.

“Just as Massachusetts’ 2006 health reform legislation provided the template for the Affordable Care Act, so the state’s experience under that legislation provides an example of the potential gains under federal health reform. It is likely that the path to near-universal coverage nationally will be slower and bumpier than it was for Massachusetts in 2006,” Sharon Long of the University of Minnesota and two graduate student colleagues wrote. “Yet the findings for Massachusetts are a reminder that major gains in coverage and associated benefits are possible.”

In 2005, an estimated 11.4 percent of Massachusetts adults under the age of 65 went without health insurance – below the national estimate of 15 percent. But the health reform law then-governor Mitt Romney signed in 2006 helped more people get covered. “Health insurance coverage among nonelderly adults in Massachusetts was at 94.2 percent in 2010,” Long’s team reported.

Long’s team used the Massachusetts Health Reform Survey, which collects information from 3,000 new adults ages 19 to 64.5 every year. They found the Massachusetts legislation met its two main goals of increasing access to health insurance and creating a new standard that health plans must meet to count as coverage under the individual mandate.

“The ‘minimum creditable coverage’ standard includes coverage for a comprehensive set of services (including prescription drugs); doctor visits for preventive care, without a deductible; limits on out-of-pocket spending; and no caps on total benefits for a particular illness or a single year. Both paths were expected to lower the costs of health care to individuals and, thereby, increase access to and use of care,” they wrote.

And this did happen. “For example, in 2010 compared to 2006, nonelderly adults were more likely to have a usual place to go when they were sick or needed advice about their health (up 4.7 percentage points), and were more likely to have had a preventive care visit (up 5.9 percentage points), a specialist visit (up 3.7 percentage points), multiple doctor visits (up 5 percentage points; and a dental care visit (up 5  percentage points),” they wrote.

There was a small drop in emergency room visits as well. But all was not rosy.

“Despite the 2010 gains in access relative to 2006, 22.8 percent of nonelderly adults in Massachusetts reported that they did not get needed care in 2010,” Long’s team wrote. “It is likely that the economic downturn and the continuing increase in health care costs, in particular, dampened any gains in coverage and affordability that might otherwise have been achieved under health reform in the state.”

Opposition to reform hardened, likely as a result of the national debate. Republicans have kept up a constant drumbeat of criticism of the national health reform law, with even Romney promising to work to repeal it if elected.

“And although nearly two-thirds of adults continue to support reform, among nonsupporters there has been a marked shift from a neutral position toward opposition (17  percent opposed to reform in 2006 compared with 26.9 percent in 2010),” Long’s team wrote.

View the original article here

Massachusetts Health Experience: What the Nation Can Expect?

Mitt Romney may not like to hear it, but if you want to know what health reform will look like for the United States, look to what’s happening in Massachusetts, a team of experts said on Tuesday.

An analysis in the journal Health Affairs shows the 2006 Massachusetts health reform initiative has, not unexpectedly, gotten health insurance coverage to most of the state’s residents. It has cut emergency-room visits and people say they feel they are healthier than before the law passed.

But costs are rising, and the national debate about the 2010 health reform law has hardened positions. Massachusetts residents who were once neutral about the law now say they oppose it, the study found.

“Just as Massachusetts’ 2006 health reform legislation provided the template for the Affordable Care Act, so the state’s experience under that legislation provides an example of the potential gains under federal health reform. It is likely that the path to near-universal coverage nationally will be slower and bumpier than it was for Massachusetts in 2006,” Sharon Long of the University of Minnesota and two graduate student colleagues wrote. “Yet the findings for Massachusetts are a reminder that major gains in coverage and associated benefits are possible.”

In 2005, an estimated 11.4 percent of Massachusetts adults under the age of 65 went without health insurance – below the national estimate of 15 percent. But the health reform law then-governor Mitt Romney signed in 2006 helped more people get covered. “Health insurance coverage among nonelderly adults in Massachusetts was at 94.2 percent in 2010,” Long’s team reported.

Long’s team used the Massachusetts Health Reform Survey, which collects information from 3,000 new adults ages 19 to 64.5 every year. They found the Massachusetts legislation met its two main goals of increasing access to health insurance and creating a new standard that health plans must meet to count as coverage under the individual mandate.

“The ‘minimum creditable coverage’ standard includes coverage for a comprehensive set of services (including prescription drugs); doctor visits for preventive care, without a deductible; limits on out-of-pocket spending; and no caps on total benefits for a particular illness or a single year. Both paths were expected to lower the costs of health care to individuals and, thereby, increase access to and use of care,” they wrote.

And this did happen. “For example, in 2010 compared to 2006, nonelderly adults were more likely to have a usual place to go when they were sick or needed advice about their health (up 4.7 percentage points), and were more likely to have had a preventive care visit (up 5.9 percentage points), a specialist visit (up 3.7 percentage points), multiple doctor visits (up 5 percentage points; and a dental care visit (up 5  percentage points),” they wrote.

There was a small drop in emergency room visits as well. But all was not rosy.

“Despite the 2010 gains in access relative to 2006, 22.8 percent of nonelderly adults in Massachusetts reported that they did not get needed care in 2010,” Long’s team wrote. “It is likely that the economic downturn and the continuing increase in health care costs, in particular, dampened any gains in coverage and affordability that might otherwise have been achieved under health reform in the state.”

Opposition to reform hardened, likely as a result of the national debate. Republicans have kept up a constant drumbeat of criticism of the national health reform law, with even Romney promising to work to repeal it if elected.

“And although nearly two-thirds of adults continue to support reform, among nonsupporters there has been a marked shift from a neutral position toward opposition (17  percent opposed to reform in 2006 compared with 26.9 percent in 2010),” Long’s team wrote.

View the original article here