AMA insurer code similar to health reform law's requirements
The American Medical Association released its "Health Insurer Code of Conduct Principles," which defines 10 standards AMA believes will ensure consistent corporate practices.
NATIONAL REPORTS-The American Medical Assn. (AMA) released its "Health Insurer Code of Conduct Principles," which defines 10 standards AMA believes will ensure consistent corporate practices.
The organization sent letters to the chief executive officers of major insurers, including the Blue Cross Blue Shield Assn. Letters ask insurers for their "commitment to full transparency and accountability with respect to all of their clinical and administrative processes."
Issues addressed in the guidelines include: cancellation of coverage, medical spending, access to care, fair contracting, patient confidentiality, and administrative simplification. The standards are endorsed by 68 state and specialty medical societies, according to AMA.
"The code echoes much of the requirements set forth in the PPACA law," says Lisa G. Han, partner, Squire, Sanders & Dempsey. "There are opportunities for greater collaboration between payers and providers under the healthcare reform law."
Han says that the medical community has a right to identify potential issues in the insurance industry, however most insurers already follow the code's specifications.
According to Kaiser Permanente Ohio spokesperson Renee DeLuca, her organization is aware of the code and has updated policies to reflect it.
In this episode of the "Meet the Board" podcast series, Briana Contreras, Managed Healthcare Executive editor, speaks with Ateev Mehrotra, a member of the MHE editorial advisory board and a professor of healthcare policy and medicine at Harvard Medical School. Mehtrotra is also a hospitalist at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. In the discussion, Contreras gets to know Mehrotra more on a personal level and picks his brain on some of his research interests including telehealth, alternative payment models and price transparency.
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