As reported in the
SF Chronicle:
WellPoint Inc., parent company of Blue Cross of California, agreed Monday to pay $198 million to settle two lawsuits representing 800,000 doctors who said they were underpaid for providing care.
This affects 28 million patients nationwide. But this is about more than just WellPoint and Blue Cross of California.
Monday's settlement is part of ongoing litigation against many of the nation's largest health insurance carriers by doctors who claim the companies in the late 1980s and '90s forced them into unfavorable contracts and manipulated software systems to underpay them.
More on the flip.
As the LA Times
reports WellPoint was "downgrading treatments doctors perform" and "routinely denied payments for multiple procedures performed on the same day."
In other words, defeauding doctors out of payment and pushing up the cost of health care.
The settlement will also "go beyond the HMO reforms adopted in California and in other states," allowing doctors to (gasp!) have a greater role in your helth care than bureaucrats.