The American Medical Association has announced disturbing finding regarding the nation’s health insurance companies. The AMA has released their latest National Health Insurer Report Card, which is a report that informs both the public and the health care industry about the accuracy insurance claims processing.
Last year, the report found that nearly one in five of claims received by insurers had been processed incorrectly. The AMA had hoped that their report would spur health insurer to make changes to how they process claims. The latest report, however, shows that little has changed.
Insurers throughout the country have been raising their rates on health care coverage. In many cases, these companies cite the growing cost of medical care as the primary reason for the rate hikes. However, the AMA report suggests that these insurers are not using the money at their disposal as well as they could, claiming that insurance companies waste billions on inefficient claims processing methods.
According to this year’s report, there is a “20% error rate among health insurers.” The AMA says that the findings of the report represent an intolerable level of inefficiency among the nation’s health insurers. The report goes on to note that an estimated $17 billion is used by insurers to make up for the discrepancies that occur from errors in claims processing.
The AMA lists companies based on their level of accuracy in processing. Ranked among the most inefficient is Blue Cross Blue Shield, whom, according to the AMA, processed only 61% of their claims accurately.
