Anthem is again ruffling the feathers of providers, this time over a new reimbursement policy denying payment for certain follow-up office visits the same day a procedure is performed.
The policy could impact many specialists and primary care doctors. Dermatologists are particularly upset over the change, which they call punitive and unnecessary with the potential to disrupt patient care.
"It is a nuisance. It makes absolutely no sense," George Hruza, a practicing dermatologist and president of the American Academy of Dermatology, told Healthcare Dive.
It's the latest in a string of controversial policies from Anthem. The Blue Cross payer that insures 40 million people has taken steps to rein in costs by enforcing different payment policies based on site of care and other factors.
In the past several years, the Indianapolis-based for-profit said that it would no longer pay for emergency room visits if patients show up with minor ailments like the common cold. It also stopped paying for certain imaging tests at outpatient facilities owned by hospitals due to the unexplained wide variation in costs compared with freestanding imaging centers.
And this year, Anthem cut rates paid to hospital-based labs in an attempt to align them with independent labs, a strategy that garnered extensive discussion on lab giant Quest Diagnostic's second quarter earnings call.
Anthem contends the latest change to office visit payments will prevent duplicative billing for similar visits. The change took effect March 1, according to a previous provider alert. Anthem told Healthcare Dive it's an update to its claims systems and does not describe it as a new reimbursement policy.
Despite conversations with Anthem, Hruza said his organization hasn't been given an explanation on what triggered the change and whether it actually addresses a problem or an abuse of the system. He said he understands the need to cut healthcare costs, but wonders how much savings the change will generate as some of the visits are below $100.
The payer proposed an almost identical change last year but later decided to pull it back after intense pushback from the American Medical Association and other provider groups. The newer policy is worse because doctors would receive no payment, and it's more narrowly tailored to the same diagnosis, Hruza said.
'Appropriate settings'
Anthem argues the policy is needed to move care to more cost-efficient settings.
"Our efforts to help achieve that goal include a range of initiatives that, among other things, encourage consumers to receive care in the most appropriate setting and also help promote accurate coding and submission of bills by providers," Anthem said in a statement to Healthcare Dive.
Hruza is worried the latest iteration would cause patients delays in care.
He gave the example of a patient with acne prescribed a medication. He would want to see them for a follow-up in a few weeks. At that second appointment, if he saw the treatment wasn't working well, he might prescribe a different medication. At the same time, he may drain an acne cyst, a minor procedure. That would trigger a denial, he said, because of the two visits revolving around the same diagnosis with the same-day procedure.
AMA is aware of the policy and has had meetings with Anthem about its concerns, a source for the organization that represents the nation's doctors told Healthcare Dive.
For providers, the big fear is the change will result in unjustified claim denials and encourage other payers to adopt similar measures. Hruza said there is no recourse for contracted providers, particularly those that work in smaller practices, when these changes are made, given Anthem's size as the nation's second-largest insurer.
As deductibles rise and patients are shouldering a greater burden of the cost of care, insurers may be feeling the pressure from employers to wring out costs from the provider side, Sabrina Corlette, a research professor at the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University, told Healthcare Dive.
"Employers are getting more and more wise to the fact that the reason we have a cost problem in this country is because of provider prices," Corlette said.