Blue Cross And Blue Shield Of Illinois

Illinois' biggest health insurer will start paying pharmacists every time they persuade a customer to switch from a brand-name drug to a generic. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois saw its drug costs rise 26% last year, to $701 million. Beginning in January, the insurer will pay $1 for each changed prescription. Generic drugs generally cost much less than brand-name versions.

Illinois' biggest health insurer will start paying pharmacists every time they persuade a customer to switch from a brand-name drug to a generic. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois saw its drug costs rise 26% last year, to $701 million. Beginning in January, the insurer will pay $1 for each changed prescription. Generic drugs generally cost much less than brand-name versions.

The government on Friday added price information to its new website, www.HealthCare.gov , that allows consumers to shop more readily for health insurance on the Internet. The information isn’t precise:  The premium costs quoted are estimates only.  But it’s valuable nonetheless, highlighting variations between different insurance policies and their potential pocketbook impact. As with many of the government’s healthcare sites, it takes a bit of effort to access the information.

The new federal healthcare law is bringing additional demands by insurance companies that doctors and hospitals be held to higher quality standards. Although this push by insurers on quality implies that consumers will get better care because doctors and hospitals will be measured against the best performers, there may be an unintended consequence: It could leave patients with fewer choices of medical care providers, depending on which health plans they purchase. Meanwhile, controversy is emerging as to how these doctors and hospitals will be selected to be on an insurer's list of preferred choices.

After years of battling the soaring cost of insuring against employees' physical ailments, American business is starting to focus on mental health costs, which have been growing even faster. Most employers experienced 12% to 20% annual increases in the overall cost of health-care benefits for the past two years. But a survey by A. Foster Higgins & Co. found that in 1989 alone, among companies with more than 5,000 employees, the cost of mental health benefits rose 47%.