The magnificent coverage of the BCBS networks cannot receive enough praise.
However.
The last three to four years have been a reach into using healthcare extenders to enhance their profit margins. The professionals that participate with these insurance companies are first rate and care for everyone they become involved with for treatment. The companies insist all these EXTRA services are voluntary, but, as the use of healthcare extenders have gone forward it is becoming less and less of a voluntary service and more and more an insistence by the company of these services.
To be honest, the services provided by the companies by healthcare extenders are probably nifty for many that don't or can't travel regularly to a doctor's appointment, but, none the less it is still a step down in quality. This TREND cannot be ignored.
Last year BCBS hired a company that would pay the patient/subscriber a 30 DAY FEE if everyday the subscriber would take a picture of the medications they were taking and sent it to the monitor. The monitor was never a licensed individual to my knowledge. There were no credentials presented. There was only simple picture taking and sending by email to a person in contract to the company.
The fee paid by the way was for 30 days on uninterrupted information. If a subscriber missed a day the 30 day cycle would start all over.
What harm is there in that? As a matter of fact it was supposedly a medication compliance issue.
I don't think so.
Medication compliance issues are noted by physicians and their nursing staff when a patient presents with high blood pressure or high blood sugar or low thyroid levels. Compliance with medications is a clinical measurement, and not a picture sent to an unverified contractor that reports back to the company. That capacity of receiving pictures of daily medication is an issue of market knowledge, not compliance.
Compliance is evaluated by licensed professionals, not record keepers.
Daily pictures of medications taken by subscribers also supplies knowledge of not only the medications a subscriber is using, but, also any supplements like vitamins or minerals. There are also herbal supplements subscribers could be using. All this marketing knowledge can be used to enhance advertisements allowed by law to encourage use of this or that.
Subscribers do not need an invasion of privacy. Quite the opposite. Subscribers need their own understanding of their medical needs based on the information provided by physicians. Staff educates the patients, too. As do pharmacists. As does a physical therapist when an order is written for treatment of a patient after some kind of injury. But, for an insurance company to invade that relationship is highly unethical no matter how it is perceived by their subscriber.
continued in next entry