Health insurance companies often conjure up images of corporations taking advantage of the hapless consumer. But in the last week one Minnesota’s UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH) performed well on two surveys that rated insurers on metrics that consumers and businesses value: insurance claims processing accuracy andemployer satisfaction.
In the 2011 American Medical Association’s National Health Insurer Report Card released last week, UnitedHealthcare (a business division)was the only commercial health insurer included in the report to show an improvement in claims-processing accuracy. UnitedHealthcare came out on top of seven leading commercial health insurers with a accuracy rating of 90.2 percent. Blue Cross Blue Shield came in last with an accuracy of 61 percent.
UnitedHealthcare’s achievement is all the more noteworthy given that the main finding of AMA’s report card was that errors in claims processing had increased 2 percent over last year.
Separately, in another survey done by J.D. Power and Associates, results of which were declared last week, UnitedHealthcare came out on top in employer satisfaction from companies that rated self insured plans. As part of the 2011 U.S. Employer Health Plan Study, J.D. Power received responses from 7,024 employers nationwide representing small, mid-size and large employers. The insurers were ranked in two groups of fully insured and self insured plans and employes rated them on the following criteria: employee plan service experience, account servicing, product offering/benefit design, problem resolution, and cost/cost management.
By Arundhati Parmar
Arundhati Parmar is the Medical Devices Reporter at MedCity News. She has covered medical technology since 2008 and specialized in business journalism since 2001. Parmar has three degrees from three continents - a Bachelor of Arts in English from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India; a Masters in English Literature from the University of Sydney, Australia and a Masters in Journalism from Northwestern University in Chicago. She has sworn never to enter a classroom again.More posts by Author
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