Your Insurer Is Caring (Buzzword?)

The news from KHN that insurers are starting to open retail stores made me scratch my head a bit. Here’s the rationale:

Health insurers increasingly want to make shopping for a new health plan as easy and convenient as dropping into a local retailer to buy a TV. In recent years, a number of them have opened stores where consumers can stop by to talk with a customer service representative about buying a plan or resolve questions about their current coverage. Some stores also sponsor health fairs or community seminars on nutrition and exercise. A few have primary-care doctors on-site.

Maybe “retail stores” is a bit of a misnomer and it should more properly be called the “Apple Store” for health care insurance. Interacting with customer service agents—that’s the “Genius Bar”; the health fairs and other stuff is like the various events the Apple Store does to teach you how to get the most out of your gadget, and so on and so forth. There’s a line from a satisfied customer that’s awfully revealing: "It's a great feeling to know the insurance company is standing behind you.”

How many times in the history of human civilization has this sentence been uttered? Not terribly often, about your health insurer, which is why dickering with your insurer is rated up there with the DMV in terms of bad customer experiences. But the effort to project a kinder, gentler face to interact with is an interesting one. There was an interesting article in the Washington Post recently by Brad Plumer postulating “The End of Retail?” which I thought of first when I read the KHN article, with my first incredulous thought being, “But why would I want to go to a store to get my health insurance when I could just get it on the Internet?”

The aim, however, isn’t the “getting” but the caring. A New York Times article suggests this—it’s about insurers trying to target the 1% of patients who account for 25% of the costs among privately insured. Because of regulations from ACA—the fact that insurers must insure everyone and can’t impose a lifetime limit—it appears insurers may have to figure out how to care for them in such a way to reduce health care use for them. The article details the kind of steps insurers are taking—sending social workers to help clear some of the obstacles associated with care; trying to figure out bundled payments so they can make one doctor responsible for a patient’s overall health, and so on and so forth. It’s essentially health insurers trying to move from financing, mostly, to caregiving. The complaint I’ve heard about this idea is that insurers won’t do particularly well since their primary expertise isn’t in that field, but they’re giving it another crack, it seems.