NEW ROUTES THROUGH CAPITALISM
lated to healthcare are going to have to go. GG: The average medical loss ratio in MasSeventy percent of expenses in healthcare sachusetts now is between 88-90% and the are labor. insurance companies still are creating substantial reserves. We would save a lot more BT: The medical loss ratio, limiting ex- from administrative simplification which penses on non-healthcare related items to would reduce costs for both insurance 85%, has received significant attention as companies and for providers who are tryboth a key provision and impossible stan- ing to get paid for their work. Moreover, dard. What role do you think it will play given that most insurance functions are in healthcare reform? highly scalable, it is hard to understand
why the percentage of cost attributable to insurance administration, profits and reserves has not diminished remarkably as total health care costs, i.e.: the denominator has grown at a rate that has far outstripped general inflation. In that reality, insurance companies could enjoy substantial increases in profitability, even if they were holding the medical cost ratio constant. !(
Interviewed by Russell Morton
Partners HealthCare represents a consortium of a healthcare institutions providing high quality care throughout Massachusetts. Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Massachusetts General Hospitals, both teaching hospitals of Harvard Medical School and ranked among the top of America’s Best Hospitals by U.S. News & World Report, co-founded Partners in 1994. Since then, a number of other hospitals, North Shore Medical Center, Faulkner Hospital, Newton-Wellesley Hospital, Nantucket Cottage Hospital, and Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, as well as the nation’s top freestanding psychiatric hospital according to U.S. News & World Report, McLean Hospital, have joined Partners. Patient care extends beyond the typical hospital, with Partners HealthCare at Home serving a large population with over 1,400 staff members and the Spaulding Rehabilitation Network, working intensive rehabilitation and long term acute care. Partners also includes the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions, a graduate school focusing on work with practitioners, and Partners Community Healthcare Inc. (PCHI), which serves to connect Partners physicians and hospitals and ensure that Partners continues to provide services of high quality and efficiency with the latest clinical technologies.
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