Cigna notes Consumer Directed Care Increases Prevention

Look at this:

CIGNA Finds Consumer-Directed Care Lowers Expenses, Increases Preventive Care

Reprinted from the Nov. 24, 2006, issue of INSIDE CONSUMER-DIRECTED CARE, a biweekly newsletter with timely news and insightful analysis of benefit design, contracts, market strategies and fina

The latest consumer-directed health study from a large health insurer confirms what previous studies have found: CDH enrollees tend to receive more preventive care and typically have lower utilization rates than do those enrolled in more traditional managed care plans.

This month, CIGNA Corp. released a study based on an analysis of 38,200 members (from 44 employer groups) who were enrolled in a CIGNA HMO or PPO in 2004 and migrated to a CDH plan in 2005. The vast majority (86%) were enrolled in an HRA-based plan, while 14% had an HSA-based plan. Trend comparisons were made to a "control" population of nearly 232,000 HMO and PPO enrollees from the same employer populations. Recent studies from Aetna, Inc. and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association have had similar findings. CIGNA released preliminary findings last February.


Funny how Sick care insurers are interested now in Prevention?? Having spent 10 years practicing pediatrics with denials for any preventive pediatric codes, I find this late in coming. What will cigna do when many users spend 4000 a year on health insurance rather than 13,500? When familes pay their Personal Pediatrics Affiliate Pediatrician directly for attentive preventive at home care and combine this with a high deductible plan, Pediatricians will begin to recoup some of those shareholder dollars that Blue cross, Aetna, and Cigna have been paying out all these years. Natalie Hodge MD
Personal Pediatrics Affiliate House call Pediatrician