ORA Physicians Meet with Insurance Medical Directors
Aggravation, frustration, and miscommunication has been a continuous state of affairs among insurance providers and physicians for some time. But ORA is working to improve relations between the parties so that we can begin to improve communication and ultimately, the quality of care patients are afforded.
This spring, ORA members such as Drs Ron Fraback, Gerald Schoepflin, Paul Hudson, Bill Maier, and the ORA board met with medical directors from leading insurance plans in Oregon. Covering the most lives in Oregon are ODS, Lifewise, Cigna, Regence Blue Cross/ Blue Shield, PacificSource, PacifiCare, Kaiser, Providence, and Managed Healthcare Northwest. The meetings were designed to introduce ORA, our purpose, and our position statements to the medical directors in order to open a dialogue concerning medical policy issues relevant to the Rheumatology community.
To date, the physicians acting as ORA representatives have met with five of the above companies including ODS, Lifewise, PacifiCare, Regence BCBSO and PacificSource, and are set to meet with Cigna later this summer.
As part of the upcoming release of the “Arthritis Package,” an ORA-produced set of standards that define “good arthritis coverage” in Oregon, ORA will use these insurance interface meetings to evaluate and report insurance providers offering the best arthritis care coverage. The report, including results from a patient satisfaction study will be completed this fall.
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