Today's challenge: Is customer service a thing of the past?

By Stephanie Cohen, CEO, Golden & Cohen

 

As a regular new addition to our Golden & Cohen blog, I'm planning to write about the situations, crises, and challenges that I experience regularly, which, quite honestly, leave me scratching my head. One that happened just last week falls under the heading, "So this is what they call good customer service?"

 

A client's Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA) was up for renewal. (For those new to this health insurance product, and HRA is offered in conjunction with a high-deductible health plan, and can be funded by the employer for each participating employee. It pays for the deductible and other medical expenses typically covered under the medical plan. Unused funds can be carried over to the next year to cover future health care expenses, an incentive to employees to use their personal HRA wisely. If funds are exhausted, the employee is responsible for satisfying the remaining deductible before the plan begins to pay. If the employee changes jobs, the money stays with the employer.)

 

In this case, the deductible was $1000 per employee for the last year, but because of the lagging economy the company wanted to increase its per person deductible to $1500. 

 

You'd think this would be a simple adjustment, but in fact the insurance carrier who was administering the HRA countered saying that the company could make the change — but they wouldn't have access to the insurance companies administration as this product does not have access to the administrator. 

 

This was unacceptable, of course, because that meant that someone else would need to handle the administration of the hundreds of people covered under this plan. As the broker the likely candidate would have been our company. Certainly, that is an expense that we did not want to incur, but more importantly it didn't seem right that the insurance company would still be making incredible amounts of money and not want to be responsible for any costs associated with managing the customer's employees. 

 

Fortunately, I was able to get a waiver and for this year and got the insurance company to agree to continue administering the plan, at least, the insurance company will be covering the administrative fees associated with this account. 

 

But the situation leaves me asking this question: Is the concept of customer service, not even good service but service at all, going to be a thing of the past? 

 

Scott Golden featured in today's Baltimore Business Journal

In an article entitled, “Complexity, cost concern local insurers,” featured in this week’s Baltimore Business Journal, reporter Elizabeth Heubeck writes, “If Scott Golden were a gambling man, he wouldn’t bet on the U.S. government creating a federally-run universal health care system.

“I think Obama is using that as a threat so that the insurance carriers will step up and put in their own price controls,” said Golden, co-founder of the Gaithersburg-based health benefits consulting firm Golden & Cohen.

Given this scenario, Golden envisions insurance carriers saving money by “spending less, giving less to brokers, or requiring that subscribers pay more.” Ultimately, Golden believes, brokers like him will make less money.

Read the entire article here.

Health insurance expert Scott Golden featured in Physician’s Money Digest

From real estate to the job market, the current recession has impacted just about everyone and every segment of the economy,” writes reporter Ed Rabinowitz in a July 14 article published in Physician’s Money Digest. “However, according to an article in the New York Times, concierge medical practices, while certainly not recession proof, do not appear to have been impacted as severely as might have been expected. Consumers/patients are still forking over $1,500 per year and up for what is promised to be personalized care and around-the-clock access.”

Rabinowitz writes: According to Scott Golden, chief financial officer of the health benefits firm Golden & Cohen, for physicians with a loyal following, the opportunity exists through the concierge model to make equal or more money than before, see fewer patients, and practice medicine the way they want. And he expects that trend to continue. “One of the goals of the Obama Administration is to get the uninsured in the system,” Golden says. “That means more people and probably the same amount of doctors, so you’re going to see the same [access] problem getting worse. But only the practices that can deliver on their promises will be able to survive.”

Read the entire article here.