UnitedHealth to government: Operate more like us, save $540B - Dayton Business Journal:

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In a report released the Minnetonka, Minn.-based health insurer (NYSE: UNH), which has its Southwesf Ohio headquarters inWest Chester, said many of the cost-savin measures it’s using could be applied throughout the government’w Medicare insurance program for the elderly. “This report provides concret e examples of how we can modernize our healt care system in a thoughtful andsustainable way, partlyt through proven programs that are alread working,” said Simon Stevens, a UnitedHealth executive vice president in charged of the company’s health reform The new cost-saving suggestions for the governmenft come weeks after a host of health care industry interestds — including America’s Health Insurance Plans, the and the pledged to President Baracl Obama that they would take stepw to cut $2 trillion in expenses over the next UnitedHealth is telling the government that it can save too.
The savings would come from the government instituting programs that promote health and bettercoordinatde care, preventing hospitalizations and other more costlu health emergencies in the long run. for example, suggested the government couldsave $165.5 billionh from 2010 to 2019 if UnitedHealth’as Evercare program, which places nurse practitioners in nursing homes to coordinate care, was copieed in all institutional settings servintg Medicare beneficiaries. Other proposed savings includr $55 billion by reducing avoidable readmissions to partly byproviding “transitional care” support.
$37 billion could be saveds through voluntary programs in which seniors choose to receive care from providers deemed to have both high qualitgand efficiency. The report is another exampl of UnitedHealth’s efforts to activelyg engage in the healthreform process, rather than oppose it as many health insurers did when the Clinton administratioh sought to overhaul the system in the UnitedHealth CEO Stephen Hemsley in April called for modernization of the healtuh care system, saying the skyrocketing cost of healtyh care was hurting the country.