Regence Blue Shield Announces Reduced Benefits
Author: Michale Simson
Category: Insurance
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This month Regence Blue Shield of Washington unveiled significant changes to their Washington health insurance plans. Regence is replacing all their current individual and family plans with their new "Evolve" plans. Although Regence is not yet requiring customers with their existing Washington health insurance plans to move to these new plans, we think that will happen within the next year or so. That means that if you have a current Regence plan, you would be forced to change to one of their new plan designs at some point in the future.
So how do these new plans compare to Regence's current offerings? From a cost standpoint it seems that in many cases we will see similar costs when comparing new plans to comparable current plans. If the preliminary rate structure they provided is adopted, pricing will not change significantly, rather it is the benefits that will decrease.
The biggest changes are in the areas of coverage and coverage limitations. Some of these new plans contain exclusions that could have a significant negative financial impact on their policyholders. For instance, none of the new plans allow you to see the doctor as many times you like for a simple copay. Instead, their richest benefit plans now only allow you to see a doctor 4 times a year with a copay, after that you're going to start paying the entire cost of subsequent doctors visits until you have met your annual deductible. Also, in many of the plans the coinsurance (the amount you pay after reaching your annual deductible) has increased, causing a higher maximum out of pocket expense if you were to become seriously ill.
Regence will also join fellow Washington Health Insurance Company. Lifewise and now charge for each child in a family. Their old pricing structure only charged for up to two children in a family plan no matter how many children are on the plan (Group Health still only charges for a maximum of two children). This was a nice benefit to large families with more than two children that already experience greater expenses due to their size.
So to summarize, Regence is keeping prices for their Washington State Health Insurance Plans relatively stable, but cutting benefits when you do need to seek medical care. Ultimately this shifts the costs from the insurance company to consumers, especially those with more than two children.
Being that Regence is the largest provider of Washington health insurance how will the other providers react to these changes? Time will tell.
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Keywords: Washington state health insurance, Washington health insurance, washington state health insurance for self employed
View Count: 26
Date Submitted: 2/4/2010
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