"MedFICO" -Get ready for medical credit scores

[underpants]

http://redtape.msnbc.com/2008/01/the-doctor-wi-1.html#posts

THE DOCTOR WILL SEE YOUR CREDIT NOW


The folks who invented the credit score for lenders are hard at work developing a similar tool for hospitals and other health care providers.

The project, dubbed “MedFICO” in some early press reports, will aid hospitals in assessing a patient’s ability to pay their medical bills. But privacy advocates are worried that the notorious errors that have caused frequent criticism of the credit system will also cause trouble with any attempt to create a health-related risk score. They also fear that a low score might impact the quality of the health care that patients receive.

Fair Issac Corp., developer of the FICO credit score, is one of several investors in Healthcare Analytics, the Massachusetts start-up that is developing the hospital risk tool. Another investor is Tenet Healthcare Corp, one of the nation's largest hospital operators. Stephen Farber, who resigned as chief financial officer of Tenet in 2004, is the CEO of Healthcare Analytics.



The Healthcare Analytics tool will be used after patients receive care and after a bill is generated to help hospitals make better financial planning decisions, Hurley said. It will also help health care providers sort through patient records and potentially make it easier to write off some unpaid bills as charity cases, rather than delinquent accounts, which would offer the hospital some accounting benefits, he said.

The firm “is particularly focused on finding ways to help hospitals systematically allocate charitable resources, to make sure that patients who need financial assistance the most receive it on a consistent basis across the industry,” he said.

Impact could reach beyond the ER
Dixon, however, was skeptical. While she didn't suspect the so-called MedFICO would be used to turn patients away in emergency situations, she said it could impact patients during follow-up visits or other non-emergency situations.

"If you had a poor score, you could be denied a hospital stay, for example," she said.

Linda Foley, who runs the Identity Theft Resource Center, also said any kind of medical risk scoring would run into a thicket of federal laws designed to protect consumers. It's not clear if such a score would be covered by the Fair Credit Reporting Act and other credit-related laws that grant consumers the right to see their own credit reports and scores. The information may also be covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which restricts the use of patients' private information.

[niyad]

1. universal health care NOW

[Kittycat]

2. You have GOT to be kidding me?

And what happens when you are fully insured, but your insurance company pisses around paying the bill?

[underpants]

4. There's a buck to be made

I agree this is just ridiculous.

[derby378]

3. Which Democratic Presidential candidate will outlaw MedFICO?

Speak up. I'm listening.