In light of HCR passage, interesting insurance co. approach - "A Health Insurer Pays More to Save"

[quiet.american]

NYT: A Health Insurer Pays More to Save
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/business/22geisinger.html?pagewanted=2&hp

“The essential business model of medical insurance will have to change,” said Dr. Glenn D. Steele Jr., the chief executive of Geisinger Health System, which operates a network of clinics and hospitals in Pennsylvania.

Geisinger is known nationally for its innovative approaches to delivering high-quality care at lower cost. It also owns a health insurance plan that covers about 250,000 people — including many of Dr. Kilduff’s patients in Shavertown.

As an insurer, Geisinger now pays the salaries of extra nurses in doctors’ offices, whose full-time job is to help patients with chronic diseases stay on top of their conditions and, ideally, out of the hospital. The doctors, including Dr. Kilduff, help hire the nurses, who work closely with the doctors to oversee the patients’ care....

His group, which cared for 900 patients insured by Geisinger, received $320,000 last year, which he said was divided among the whole staff, even the receptionists. The reward was based, too, on various measures of the quality of care delivered....

A glimpse of the future...things are changing... slowly, but they're changing....