In today's ever-changing health care landscape, Cigna is defining the opportunity. We want to provide people with access to personalized, affordable health care and help eliminate surprises.
How does that translate to the everyday needs of consumers? Cost concerns are impacting when and how people seek health care.
- About 40 percent of Americans report skipping a recommended medical test or treatment and 44 percent say they didn't go to a doctor when they were sick or injured in the last year because of cost. 1
- More than half of American adults (57 percent) have been surprised by a medical bill that they thought would have been covered by insurance, and 20 percent of surprise bills were linked to out-of-network care.2
- On average, 30 percent of common chronic condition emergency room visits are potentially unnecessary, translating to $8.3 billion in additional health care costs.3
Cigna President and CEO David Cordani has called on the industry to take action and help Americans navigate the highly-regulated, complex environment as consumers seek more value.
"The question is, are we going to resist? Are we going to collaborate? Or as we look at a path forward, will we choose to lead?" Cordani asked industry leaders at an annual conference for health insurance organizations.
"Society demands more value from us, and they should, as it relates to more personalized, affordable, predictable services, relative to their health, well-being and peace of mind. And that possibility exists for all of us to step up and deliver more value."
Cigna has a relentless focus on addressing needs of our customers, patients, provider partners and clients. Recent actions include:
- Creating the Patient Assurance Program to help remove the cost concern for those who need insulin.
- Focusing on treating the whole person while leveraging data and technology to better connect individuals to health care professionals via the One Guide customer advocacy.
- Launching HealthConnect 360 to enable a more personalized clinical care experience and improve clinical engagement, ensuring better health outcomes.
As the health care market continues to evolve, Cigna will continue to look to the people we serve to help us better understand their needs. Answering the needs of the public, and working with other industry leaders will allow everyone to go beyond what we've done before and share a vision for a path forward.
"We need to elevate the effectiveness of our public-private partnerships and drive more personalized value," said Cordani. "I believe that the public-private partnerships like Medicare Advantage, the smart evolution of managed Medicaid programs and empowering employers to evolve programs that work best for their employees have more promise than a single, one-size-fits-all solution."
"We need to do better, because society demands better. It's not achieved by cutting costs, it's achieved by driving better quality."
1 New Survey Finds Large Number of People Skipping Necessary Medical Care Because of Cost, March 25, 2018. https://www.westhealth.org/press-release/survey2018/
2 Survey Sheds Light on Frequency of Surprise Medical Bills in America, September 15, 2018, https://www.managedhealthcareexecutive.com/mhe-articles/survey-sheds-light-frequency-surprise-medical-bills-america
3 Unnecessary ED visits from chronically ill patients cost $8.3 billion, February 7, 2019 https://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20190207/TRANSFORMATION03/190209949/unnecessary-ed-visits-from-chronically-ill-patients-cost-8-3-billion
