By Ken Alltucker
The Arizona Republic, November 3, 2011
Health Net of Arizona is teaming with Banner Health to offer a new health-maintenance-organization insurance plan that allows businesses and their workers access to discounted care if they agree to limit their network of health providers.
The Health Net ExcelCare HMO plan offers customers a network exclusively made up of Banner Health Network medical providers and Banner Health hospitals.
Although it’s Health Net’s initial foray into “narrow networks” in Arizona, the health insurer said that it has had success enticing both large and small employers in California to choose similar plans with slimmed-down networks.
Health Net has been among the most aggressive in promoting HMO plans with narrow networks, but other insurance companies such as Aetna and UnitedHealth Group have also offered such plans.
Comment:
By Don McCanne, MD
“Narrow networks” – sharply limiting the network of physicians and hospitals that the insurer will cover – is yet another example of private insurer innovation in their marketed products. Only in the private sector can taking away patients’ choices in their health care professionals and institutions be considered an improvement in product design. A public single payer system would be designed to enhance access, not restrict it.