Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Healthcare Industry Counters Growing Number of Uninsured with Patient Education

Manasquan, N.J., USA, January 16, 2007– With the number of uninsured Americans reaching an all-time high as of 2005, the entire healthcare industry is feeling the impact. The costs of health benefits are often too steep for employers to provide or for employees to purchase, and as more uninsured utilize hospital emergency departments for primary care, the impact of the uninsured on insurance costs will only continue to rise. It is increasingly being left up to the healthcare industry to find and implement ways to keep their own costs of healthcare down.

This was the topic discussed in a December 2006 survey conducted by the Healthcare Intelligence Network (HIN). The Web-based survey, which drew more than 100 respondents, asked those in the healthcare industry what products or services, if any, their organizations had launched to help combat the financial impact of the uninsured. Of the 58 percent of respondents who replied that their organizations had initiatives in place, 68 percent of them were from hospitals/ health care systems or health plans. The respondents talked about their most successful initiatives, and described the impact that these programs had on the issue. For a complete discussion of the survey results, please visit the HIN site.

Having experienced the impact of the uninsured on the healthcare economy firsthand, healthcare organizations have begun to implement strategies designed to counter this financial strain. The most popular initiatives reported were those that focused on patient education: making patients aware of existing programs that give assistance, as well as those that follow up on patients to ensure that they take the steps necessary to remain healthy. Of the 25 hospital representatives whose companies had launched programs to deal with the financial impact of the uninsured, 55 percent said that the main services that they had created to combat this issue were designed to educate the uninsured on policies that could provide financial assistance.

“It is apparent that patient education is key in creating change,” said HIN Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Melanie Matthews of the survey results. Matthews said she was prompted to survey healthcare organizations about this issue after hearing it mentioned frequently during the audio conferences her organization sponsors for industry executives. “Our survey told us that the most popularly accepted initiatives implemented by hospitals and health plans to lower the financial impact of the uninsured were those that proactively worked with the customer to educate them about their options.” For complete survey results, please visit the HIN site.

About the Healthcare Intelligence Network – HIN is the premier advisory service for executives seeking high-quality strategic information on the business of healthcare. For more information, contact the Healthcare Intelligence Network, PO Box 1442, Wall Township, NJ 07719-1442, (888) 446-3530, fax (732) 292-3073, e-mail info@hin.com, or visit http://www.hin.com.

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Contact: Patricia Donovan
Voice: (888) 446-3530
Fax: (732) 292-3073
E-mail: pdonovan@hin.com
Web site: www.hin.com