Hopkins is dropping CareFirst

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a Hopkins employee and have CareFirst insurance through Hopkins. I bet they'll reach an agreement.

DH is a fed worker and suspects this is a bargaining tool as well.

[Anonymous]

The Carefirst post sounds pretty harsh. Really hope they work it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How were all of you notified? I have CareFirst and several Hopkins providers and have seen nothing. I'm a breast cancer patient.

My employer is switching to Cigna in January and I was really upset but maybe I shouldn't be.

I received an email this morning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Carefirst post sounds pretty harsh. Really hope they work it out.

Harsh? It sounds rather calm and measured. I hope they take Hopkins down. I don’t particularly care whether it’s through private insurance companies or a move to a single-payer system, but someone needs to get health care costs under control.

[Anonymous]

I hate the insurance industry and their dirty lobbyists who insert themselves into the health care system to skim off money and profit from illness, stress and suffering, and in fact create even more stress and illness at the worst of times. Unethical!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I doubt we’re getting an accurate story here. Likely some Hopkins-affiliated doctor is threatening to stop being a preferred provider, and wrong a vague email intentionally suggesting Hopkins as a whole was pulling out. That’s not realistic. BCBS is too big, and most of the other private insurance companies don’t reimburse any better.

I have no pity for Hopkins, though. Ever try to transfer a patient there? They won’t tell you whether they have beds until you tell them what insurance the patient has. Funny how they almost always have beds when I have a BCBS patient but they never have beds when I have a Medicaid patient. And their doctors are horrible to work with. UMMC and Georgetown are much better to work with.

Ummm no. Do you realize who sent the email?

Read the post with the email and look up who sent it.

This is huge news and a very bad loss for carefirst holders.

That sounds like a pretty standard letter that a lot of systems and providers send out when preferred provider agreements are being renegotiated. Is it sleazy for Hopkins to do that? Sure. But they’re not the only ones that send those out.

Plenty of other doctors and hospitals around if they somehow went through with their threat. Though again, that’s exceedingly unlikely.

How much the insurance lobby pay you to ruin everyone's lives?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:thank the greedy doctors and big pharma.

Actually Hopkins doctors don’t get paid much at all.

+1
I used to be one.
I had 10+ years of experience in a speciality with moderate salaries (ie not peds or rheumatology or another low-paying speciality), and made 180K/year working 60-70 hours/week.
Many have family money or a higher-earning spouse.
Couldn’t swing it anymore financially, and left.

Also, because of the structure of medical reimbursement for Maryland Hospitals, costs are more contained in Maryland than in other states.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/24/opinion/maryland-medical-bills-lower.html

Doctors in Maryland actually have fairly low salaries relative to the cost of living.

But the whole system is broken and needs to be burned down and rebuilt.
Essentially every physician I know who is 50 or younger wants single-payrr.
We are all burned out and miserable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:thank the greedy doctors and big pharma.

Actually Hopkins doctors don’t get paid much at all.

Many low income people in DC are using John Hopkins community physicians for their primary care. I heard nothing but good feedback about these doctors. I accompanies a couple of seniors on visit as translator and they are awesome. I wish my own doctors care as much and spend as much time with me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:does this include the federal plans?

that is a huge cross section in this area with the federal government being a significant employer and hopkins being a significant provider.

You would think they wouldn't want to drop all federal workers from being clients.

It wouldn't drop all federal workers from being clients. Feds have a ton of insurance plans to choose from.

--Fed who does not have CareFirst

We use Kaiser.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hate the insurance industry and their dirty lobbyists who insert themselves into the health care system to skim off money and profit from illness, stress and suffering, and in fact create even more stress and illness at the worst of times. Unethical!

+10000

They're posting here and probably live in Chevy Chase, Bethesda, Potomac, and NoVa.

Disgusting scum. They live comfy earning their incomes killing people and making everyone's lives miserable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I doubt we’re getting an accurate story here. Likely some Hopkins-affiliated doctor is threatening to stop being a preferred provider, and wrong a vague email intentionally suggesting Hopkins as a whole was pulling out. That’s not realistic. BCBS is too big, and most of the other private insurance companies don’t reimburse any better.

I have no pity for Hopkins, though. Ever try to transfer a patient there? They won’t tell you whether they have beds until you tell them what insurance the patient has. Funny how they almost always have beds when I have a BCBS patient but they never have beds when I have a Medicaid patient. And their doctors are horrible to work with. UMMC and Georgetown are much better to work with.

Ummm no. Do you realize who sent the email?

Read the post with the email and look up who sent it.

This is huge news and a very bad loss for carefirst holders.

That sounds like a pretty standard letter that a lot of systems and providers send out when preferred provider agreements are being renegotiated. Is it sleazy for Hopkins to do that? Sure. But they’re not the only ones that send those out.

Plenty of other doctors and hospitals around if they somehow went through with their threat. Though again, that’s exceedingly unlikely.

How much the insurance lobby pay you to ruin everyone's lives?

If only I had the money the anesthesiologist’s lobbying organizations throw around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Carefirst post sounds pretty harsh. Really hope they work it out.

Harsh? It sounds rather calm and measured. I hope they take Hopkins down. I don’t particularly care whether it’s through private insurance companies or a move to a single-payer system, but someone needs to get health care costs under control.

I would rather see CareFirst go down than Hopkins. CareFirst adds zero value in health care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Carefirst post sounds pretty harsh. Really hope they work it out.

Harsh? It sounds rather calm and measured. I hope they take Hopkins down. I don’t particularly care whether it’s through private insurance companies or a move to a single-payer system, but someone needs to get health care costs under control.

“Take Hopkins down”…so you’d rather everyone suffer a discontinuity of care? I am also for a single payer system and MD is probably one of the closest use cases to it with its all payer rates that you’d see and this is still happening. I also find it disingenuous that Carefirst says they’re a not for profit company in the very beginning and suggests you call their member services who I find less than helpful most of the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Carefirst post sounds pretty harsh. Really hope they work it out.

Harsh? It sounds rather calm and measured. I hope they take Hopkins down. I don’t particularly care whether it’s through private insurance companies or a move to a single-payer system, but someone needs to get health care costs under control.

I would rather see CareFirst go down than Hopkins. CareFirst adds zero value in health care.

Absolutely. The amount of effort they make physicians go through for prior auths, medication costs, procedure codes, etc is a lot. I have found my physicians are generally willing to help me make cost conscious decisions too but insurance never has.

[Anonymous]

My breast surgeon and radiation oncologist are both through Hopkins. And all my imaging. I think my oncologist's practice is separate. Fabulous! My employer is switching insurance next year anyway, so hopefully it's just December that's the issue, but looks like I'd better get my next MRI in before 12/4.

Our system is such a mess.