MINNEAPOLIS. June 17, 2008—On Monday, June 16, at the AMA House of Delegates meeting in Chicago, the AMA introduced its "Cure for Claims" campaign along with its National Health Insurer Report Card (NHIRC).

The campaign is significant because physicians must spend 14 percent of their total revenue just to get paid. The intent of the NHIRC and "Cure for Claims" campaign is to work together with the health care industry to reduce unnecessary administrative waste in the claims process.

The focus of the National Health Insurer Report Card is on how quickly and accurately doctors get paid.  The report card seeks to reduce the cost of claims processing to doctors and help them as they negotiate contracts with insurance companies. 

The report card compares Medicare and seven national commercial health insurers on the timeliness and accuracy of claims processing. It is based on a random sample drawn from 3 million claims.

There are no grades like A, B and C, and many of the technical measures may not mean much to most patients. But business leaders and health policy makers will have a strong interest in cutting $210 billion in wasted annual administrative claims processing costs.

The NHIRC idea owes a debt to the MMA's 2006 Tiering Report, which undertook to analyze in a similar manner the risks and benefits of Minnesota's tiered-physician plans.

November has been declared “Cure for Claims” month—a time for physicians to review and reconcile claims, and join practices around the country in the AMA's campaign to cure the claims process.

AMA "Cure for Claims" web page

National Health Insurer Report Card