Aetna Inc. has the top reputation on an updated survey of hospital executives assessing insurance carriers on their payment policies. The owner of Trumbull-based Oxford Health Plans Inc. scored lowest nationally, though fared better when employers weighed in via a separate survey.
The National Payor Survey was conducted online by Alexandria, Va.-based Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates Inc. and published in early March by DAVIES, which bills itself as one of the largest public affairs agencies in the country. The Los Angeles-based organization also published a new survey that queried individuals responsible for selecting health-plan coverage for employers of all sizes.
Hartford-based Aetna received a favorable rating from 64 percent of respondents, 9 points better than Philadelphia-based CIGNA Corp. Just 34 percent of providers gave Aetna an unfavorable rating.
“Aetna is clearly the preferred health insurance partner for hospitals and health systems across the United States,” said Brandon Edwards, president of DAVIES, in a statement accompanying the survey results. “This bodes well for Aetna, and perhaps CIGNA, as they look at 2009 commercial enrollment retention, as well as 2010 commercial enrollment growth.”
Some 82 percent of respondents had an unfavorable view of UnitedHealthcare, the Minnesota-based parent of Oxford Health, far the worst of any carrier in the country though an improvement from last year when 91 percent of respondents panned the company. The company also fared better in a second survey when viewed by employers who bought the plan, besting Aetna by two positions.
A UnitedHealthcare spokeswoman told the Business Journal of Milwaukee that the survey is based on a small sample of hospitals nationally, and that the company has a positive relationship with most of the hospitals with which it does business.
Some 160 hospitals in all 50 states responded. Survey respondents knew Aetna and UnitedHealthcare the best, with 95 percent of them doing business with the two carriers.
UnitedHealthcare”™s reimbursement rates were not significantly lower than other major health plans, but the carrier still was viewed as the worst performer by a large margin. According to DAVIES, the survey suggested that dissatisfaction is driven by flawed business process, inadequate claims processing, claims denials and other business process problems.
Whereas Aetna was tops in the country on six of seven survey questions related to the concept of trust, UnitedHealthcare bottomed out on all seven of those queries.
“Hospitals simply don”™t trust UnitedHealthcare to follow through on its promises,” Edwards said.
CIGNA also placed second in a separate survey of employers that purchase health insurance for their workers ”“ on that survey, UnitedHealthcare fared far better on that poll, garnering the fourth best positive rating in the nation, ahead of Aetna at the sixth ranking.
While hospital executives said their most important priority this year is to increase the rates paid by insurance carriers, the biggest change from last year”™s priorities were plans to shift market share from one carrier to another.
