States may be wrangling over how to design a health insurance exchange that will allow them to fulfill the individual mandate of the healthcare reform law, but private health entities are already forging ahead with new offerings for individuals.
Minnesota-based health insurer Medica and health provider Fairview Health Services announced that starting April 1, they will introduce a lower-cost health insurance product for people who buy health insurance on their own. Called “Harmony with Medica and Fairview,” the plan has premium costs that are 10 percent less than the same products currently offered by Medica to individuals and families.
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Individuals who buy the plan will have access to Fairview’s 2,000 physicians, more than 350 primary- and specialty-care clinics, and all the Fairview hospitals in the Twin Cities metro area, including University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview and University of Minnesota Amplatz Children’s Hospital.
“Individual purchasers are looking for even more value because they pay for premiums and other healthcare costs directly from their own pockets,” said Dannette Coleman, Medica’s vice president and general manager of individual and family business, in a news release. “Harmony with Medica and Fairview demonstrates the cost savings we can achieve through a high level of integration between our two organizations.”
Here are three possible scenarios that show how much people would pay, according to Medica spokesman Greg Bury:
A 25 year-old with a $2,000 deductible, $30 office-call co-pay and $10 generic prescription co-pay would pay $135.11 monthly for Medica Symphony and $121.59 monthly for Harmony with Medica and Fairview.
A 40 year-old with the same coverage level as above would pay $164.31 monthly for Medica Symphony and $147.87 monthly for Harmony with Medica and Fairview.
A family of four with two adults age 30 and with two minor children, with a $4,050 shared deductible, $30 office-call co-pay and $10 generic prescription co-pay would pay $551.10 monthly for Medica Symphony and $496.02 monthly for Harmony with Medica and Fairview.
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The new product is the result of a collaboration between the two organizations that date back to 2009 through which Fairview would earn “performance-based payments tied to improvements in clinical quality and to managing the total cost of patient care.”
[Photo Credit: digitalart]
