Cleveland Clinic Enters Insurance Market

[Bridget Conant]

During the hospital debacle, a little birdie told me the Clinic was looking to get into the health insurance market, as a carrier.

Read today's news:

http://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/inde ... short_home

They will be offering this in the market as well as through government healthcare exchanges.

Carefully read the focus:

The companies expect to use telehealth virtual visits and preventive care to keep patients from making visits to the emergency department, which is more expensive, said Steven Glass, CFO of the Clinic.

They plan to rely heavily on "telehealth," so you dont actually go visit a doctor, and they will likely not cover or penalize you for ER visits.

How will this bode for the "ER" in Lakewood? Will reduced visits mean we do not need and ER here when several others are "so close?"

Read the writing on the wall.

[m buckley]

During the hospital debacle, a little birdie told me the Clinic was looking to get into the health insurance market, as a carrier.

Read today's news:

http://www.cleveland.com/healthfit/inde ... short_home

They will be offering this in the market as well as through government healthcare exchanges.

Carefully read the focus:

The companies expect to use telehealth virtual visits and preventive care to keep patients from making visits to the emergency department, which is more expensive, said Steven Glass, CFO of the Clinic.

They plan to rely heavily on "telehealth," so you dont actually go visit a doctor, and they will likely not cover or penalize you for ER visits.

How will this bode for the "ER" in Lakewood? Will reduced visits mean we do not need and ER here when several others are "so close?"

Read the writing on the wall.

Scott Gilman - 9/9 /2016 .

"The ER at Lakewood continues to be a community asset and will remain that way if it is supported by the community."

Mr. Gilman.
I believe Kate McCarthy is still waiting for an explanation of your statement.

[Tim Liston]

Health "insurance" is yet another scam. There can be no such thing as health insurance because unlike say car crashes, the need for medical treatment is relatively predictable. Further, health "insurance" is promoted by the medical industry as a stealth "intermediation" strategy designed to make sure that nobody pays for their own medical care. That drives up usage enormously, rather like an all-you-can-eat buffet.

The surest way to reduce medical care costs in this country is to make people pay their own health care costs, with the only insurance option being for relatively catastrophic and unpredictable claims. Best perhaps would be a policy with a one-time, lifetime $250,000 deductible. My guess is that would drive costs down at least 50% by discouraging profligate usage and encouraging personal cost control. A 50% cost reduction would put us at about par with other developed countries.

BTW I only skimmed the article but what the Clinic is doing looks to be very limited in scope, and does not compete with Medical Mutual, which IMO is in the Clinic's hip pocket.

[Dan Alaimo]

I'm not as skeptical about this plan as some. CCF is not the first locally. Metro has started offering an HMO-like product with Medical Mutual this year. It would be helpful to many if a lower cost plan was offered to individuals on the exchanges.

And I'm not as concerned about the "telehealth" option and could even see myself using it.

As to the decimation of health care in Lakewood, that ship has sailed.

Now if the City were to partner with a provider or insurer to offer a low-cost plan to residents, perhaps using some of "foundation" money, that would be something else. But that's pretty unlikely.