By Joey Giangola
Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield has rolled out their highly innovative online tool called Anthem Care Comparison that will finally give people the valuable information needed to make informed, cost conscience decisions about how they spend their health care dollars.
This new technology will allow Anthem members the opportunity to compare the price and quality of near by medical faculties for certain diagnostic testing such as MRI’s and CT scans.
Anyone who has had a doctor order a diagnostic test generally allows him or her to do so at whatever facility they desire, with little or no questioning. However, people are not aware of the fact that the cost associated with such testing can vary greatly, hundreds even thousands of dollars from facility to facility ,often times with no drop off in quality.
What Anthem is attempting to do is give its members more power by providing this knowledge. People who have opted for a higher deductible plan know the importance of shopping their medical costs. If they are faced with a $5,000 deductible and require a CT scan that can be done for $1,500 instead of $3,000, with the same quality of care, that is money they will gladly put in their pocket.
This is the first major effort to get serious about trying to control our out of control medical costs. The entire system, (doctors, hospitals, insurance companies and the America people) has taken a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach to the cost of their health care for a bit to long. A method that is fine and dandy as long as someone else is picking up the bill. With medical inflation raising more and more each year, this is an issue that can no longer be ignored.
Joey Giangola is an independent insurance agent for Giangola Insurance Agency and specializes in individual health insurance. You can email him at joey@giangolainsurance.com, or follow him on twitter and Google+.
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