Back One Page
What's New for May 2004
CIGNA Hospital Notice 4-12-04
Practice Managers' Meeting-United HealthCare Guest Speaker
Reminder notice that the May Practice Manager Meeting was changed to Wednesday, June 2, 2004. Meeting will be held at the same time and location (9:00 am and 12:00 pm, CVMC AHEC 112 please arrive 15 minutes prior for food). We will send reminder notices mid May. We are pleased to announce that United HealthCare (UHC) will be the primary presenter at our June meeting. They will plan to overview their products and address our membership's issues/concerns. We will keep our WNCHA updates brief to allow ample time for UHC's presentation. Please plan to attend!!
Annual WNCHA PHO Membership Meeting
Reminder, WNCHA will hold their annual Provider Membership Meeting, June 16, 2004 at 6:00 pm in the Jade Room at CVMC. The purpose of our annual meeting is two-fold, annual elections of open Board Member positions, and the opportunity to provide a PHO annual report to our membership. Also serves as a great opportunity for your physicians to meet our PHO team and Board Members. Formal election nominations and annual meeting notices were sent 5.5.04 to each of your physicians. Please ensure they open and respond accordingly. Formal invitations will follow later this month.
Beware of Discount Card Programs-They are not Insurance!
With the cost of healthcare continuing to rise and employers dropping coverage, your office may have been inundated lately with calls regarding unheard of insurance programs or members presenting ID cards that appear unusual and without standard payor names-- potential signs of "discount card programs". Discount card programs are NOT insurance products and our contractual discounts do not apply. These are pre-paid cards that supposedly allow patient's to access various network providers, at a discounted rate. However, the majority of the time the company is not licensed in North Carolina, does not have contractual agreements in place with Providers or may be illegally or inappropriately accessing discounts through third party networks contracts. Ultimately the patient looses as they pay for a product, thinking it is insurance, or at least access to discounted provider services, only to find out it is neither. There are legitimate programs in the market, and some do provide a level of savings for the patient, but differentiating the two can be confusing for you and the patient.
To assist you and your patient's the NC Department of Insurance (DOI) has posted a hotline
For plan confirmation. You may call and confirm if a discount card company is legitimate and
Licensed in North Carolina and/or report potential fraud and abuse. We have provided a copy of
the NC DOI information from their website, you may visit them directly at http://64.85.17.192/. and
have enclosed their hotline notice. To further assist, you may check our payor listing for
the most current contracts, or contact our office to confirm product/contractual participation.
