ENGLEWOOD, CO – Colorado’s Senate has mandated that all carriers providing a health plan in that state will be required to issue standardized insurance cards by July 1, 2010, to all persons covered.
The Medical Group Management Association expects the move to reduce healthcare administrative burdens and save practices hundreds of thousands of dollars. MGMA researchers found that an average 10-physician practice spends as much as $247,500 a year on unnecessarily complex, wasteful, duplicative administrative tasks that add no value to a practice or its patients.
“We are encouraged that the issue of healthcare administrative complexity has gotten so much attention by legislators in Colorado,” said William F. Jessee, MD, MGMA’s president and CEO. “The burden and cost of administrative complexity comes from a variety of sources in the healthcare system, but standardizing ID cards is a no-brainer.”
Residents will receive the cards upon the purchase or renewal of or enrollment in a plan on or after July 1, 2009. The cards will include name and plan number, co-payment information with deductible amounts for the most commonly used healthcare services, contact information for the carrier or health benefit plan administrator and whether the health benefit plan is regulated by the state.
While the state won’t require that the cards to have a magnetic, machine-readable strip to store patient data, a committee charged with selecting the final standards by October 31 could add that provision.
The committee will make recommendations as to “the specific information that such technology and tools should be able to electronically exchange or transmit and also how to simplify eligibility and coverage verification through electronic data interchange utilizing swipe card or other appropriate technology.”
“Most insurance-claim rejections stem from incorrectly entered information about the patient or the insurance product. The fact that most practices must photocopy patient ID cards and type the information into their databases invites error, which – compounded across medical practices nationwide – can cost billions,” said Jessee.