Health Insurance and You!

On Aug. 5, both Aetna and Wellpoint declared their support for Health Information Technology (Health IT). Essentially a broad electronic medical record, Health IT claims to allow for “comprehensive management of medical information and its secure exchange between health care consumers and providers” according to healthit.hhs.gov.

Health IT would allow for increased efficiency and more comprehensive and accurate diagnoses of patients by presenting a database of medical information. It would include patients’ medical histories among other things to expedite administrative tasks.

Wellpoint’s Pay for Performance incentives will be synced with federal programs to create a new financing program. This program will support Health IT in underserved areas.

Aetna plans to support Health IT by offering financial incentives. It would reward physicians who reach certain quality of care objectives and invest in technology for application of electronic records.

ActiveHealth Management, a subsidiary of Aetna, also announced a steady turn towards Health IT. With IBM at its side, Activehealth has begun work on Collaborative Care Solution. This product will change the way healthcare is administered and delivered, relying upon Health IT and clinical decision support to allow for a higher quality of care at a lower cost.

Health IT is expected to make the process and execution of healthcare more effective, efficient, and precise and with major providers such as Aetna and Wellpoint behind it, Health IT seems to be on the rise.