By Bill Toland
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
November 2, 2007
Highmark Inc., the Pittsburgh-based health insurer, hopes its new Healthcare Gift Card will encourage people who might be reluctant to visit the doctor or spend their money on prescriptions… to do so.
The card itself costs $4.95 (plus shipping and handling), and can be loaded with as little as $25… to as much as $5,000.
“Ultimately, we think this product may go national,” said Kim Bellard, Highmark’s vice president of e-marketing and consumer relations. He expects other insurers will be interested in using the “intellectual technology,” which Highmark hopes to patent.
“We do expect other people to follow,” he said. “We certainly expect phone calls from other Blues plans. … I would love to get a phone call from AARP.”
If the patent is received, any insurer or organization that tries selling a similar gift card may owe Highmark royalties.
Highmark partnered with Visa in developing the card, which can be used just like a Visa credit card or debit card, but only at merchants that Visa has categorized as health-related.
But couldn’t you just take the gift card to Rite Aid and spend it on a case of Coca-Cola and a bag of Snickers bars? “We obviously don’t advertise that,” Mr. Bellard said. But the answer is, yes — for now.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07306/830560-85.stm
To purchase the cards:
http://www.givewell.com/
Comment:
By Don McCanne, MD
Any innovation that the health insurance industry can devise to drum up more administrative fees, they’ll do. In this instance, Highmark wants not only more fees, but they also want other insurers’ administrative fees as well, claiming its patent rights to the intellectual capital.
As long as we leave the private insurance industry in charge, we’ll see more and more of these efforts to soak us with additional administrative costs. It reflects the fundamental differences in the mission of the private insurance plans (profitable business model), and what would be the mission of our own single payer national health program (health care justice for all).