Health plans try to maintain profit margins and limit rising premiums as escalating drug prices, expensive new technologies, and higher physician and hospital expenditures increase health care costs. Rural areas have the additional issue of adverse risk because young, healthier people often move to live in urban areas, leaving an older, sicker population in these communities. Health plan cost-containment strategies include having a narrow network that excludes primary care, specialty, and pediatric subspecialty physicians whose practice patterns and/or high payment rates result in higher costs. When a health plan’s physician network is restricted (narrow), the plan has more leverage to negotiate favorable payments because a high proportion of the patients in a participating physician’s practice are enrolled in the plan. Having a network that has fewer specialists and pediatric subspecialists may also discourage the enrollment of children and adults with chronic and complex conditions when they recognize that their physician...
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April 2017
Commentary|
April 01 2017
Will Virtual Pediatric Subspecialist Networks “Disrupt” Existing Narrow Networks?
Stephen Berman, MD
University of Colorado School of Medicine, Center for Global Health, Colorado School of Public Health, Children’s Hospital Colorado, Aurora, Colorado
Address correspondence to Stephen Berman, MD, FAAP, 13199 E Montview Blvd, Suite 310, A090, Aurora, CO 80045. E-mail: stephen.berman@childrenscolorado.org
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Address correspondence to Stephen Berman, MD, FAAP, 13199 E Montview Blvd, Suite 310, A090, Aurora, CO 80045. E-mail: stephen.berman@childrenscolorado.org
POTENTIAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST: The author has indicated he has no potential conflicts of interest to disclose.
FINANCIAL DISCLOSURE: The author has indicated he has no financial relationships relevant to this article to disclose.
Pediatrics (2017) 139 (4): e20163975.
Article history
Accepted:
January 13 2017
Citation
Stephen Berman; Will Virtual Pediatric Subspecialist Networks “Disrupt” Existing Narrow Networks?. Pediatrics April 2017; 139 (4): e20163975. 10.1542/peds.2016-3975
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