As unbelievable as it sounds, some HealthPartners employees are talking about striking over *their* health insurance benefits, as I found at the Minneapolis Saint Paul Business Journal and Pioneer Press. At issue is the need for employees to pay a portion of their medical premium, and a change in the way prescriptions are paid.
Obvious to management is that the costs associated with the group have gone up due to the utilization of medicine, but apparently that same point of view is not shared by the workers. What can management do? They can cave in to the demands of the workers, and find another way to pay the difference: by increasing costs, and premiums to create a larger margin in operations to cover the costs.
But, you may ask, what about corporate profits, and those blood-suckers who run the insurance side of HealthPartners? HealthPartners is the largest consumer-governed, nonprofit health care organization in the nation.
Jonathan Pletzke is a consumer expert on health insurance and author of the health insurance book Get a Good Deal on Your Health Insurance Without Getting Ripped-Off, available online and at bookstores nationally. Additional details can be found at the consumers health insurance book and resources website www.BestHealthInsuranceBook.com. Copyright 2007-2008 Aji Publishing.
Tags: co-payments · Health Insurance · strike · twin cities1 Comment
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Dear Jonathan:
Just want you to know that as an Urgentcare nurse at Health Partners one of our primary concerns is about safe staffing. Safe staffing - so that quality healthcare can be provided to those we treat. This philosophy is not necessarily shared by management … they have redefined mean and lean. We currently have an increased need for healthcare - with a system that is reducing staffing, fighting the payment of overtime. Yet expecting staff to see more patients in less time, No consideration given for acuity– . The entire medical staff is sacrificing lunch time, breaks — vacation time, personal leave, sick leave because of corporate greed. How much are those bonuses they get for short staffing ?
The end result is staff burnout … physcians frustrated with bulging -waiting rooms forced to see as many as 60 plus pts alone on a weekend day- and are expected to donate their after hours time that it takes for them to chart and document on those they have cared for. RN’s - - are forced to sit at computers and do follow up on lab results. This could mean 180 phone calls - not counting the addfitional consults necessary to clarify medications or complications. This means one RN , provides this service for 3 clinics — one nurse was told she would not have a job — if she did not sign the waiver for the overtime which Health Partner’s and the Union agreed to. Older nurses ran out to avoid paying retirement - or disability…
What ever happened to the medical secretaries ? They are extinct … the need for them is still there … but all of their duties have been passed on to the nurses and certified medical assistants… the same people that are rooming, assisting, wound dressing, calling for the ambulances, giving oxygen. And if someone bleeds or vomits in the waiting room, bathroom or treatment room this is also their job. Icy sidewalks also fall ( no pun intended) into their job duties — especially if they care about the safety of the patients.
Health Partners is a misnomer … “Healthy Workplace” depends on ones mentation.
Last but not least what about those patients who can’t get an appointment because there are none available…or they are uninsured ,or cannot afford the copay and the medicine? They finally go to Urgentcare when they can’t take the pain, they can’t walk because their hip was broken 2 weeks ago, and they leave by ambulance.
Drive thru medicine… who pays the price?