Texas IPA offers discount cards

The group hopes its cards will benefit both physicians and patients.

By Tyler Chin, amednews staff. July 21, 2003.

Genesis Physicians Group, a 1,350-physician independent practice association, plans to roll out a discount card program targeting the uninsured and underinsured.

"There's some risk here for us because we're entering a field that has not had good players," said Ron Lutz, president and CEO of Genesis, the second-largest IPA in Texas. "The difference is, we're doing it the right way and for the right reasons."

See related content
Region: South

For example, unlike at many card companies, physicians will be asked if they want to participate. "This [offering] will have integrity. It's being sold by and controlled by us," he said. The cards would only be good at participating physicians within the IPA and an affiliated PPO.

The IPA maintains the cards will help doctors retain existing patients who might otherwise avoid care because of job loss. Since January 2001, more than 40,000 people out of a labor force of 3.03 million people have been laid off in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, according to the Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce.

Most of them find it too embarrassing or humiliating to ask their doctors for a discount, Lutz said.

Genesis thinks the cards will also help physicians attract new patients and improve doctors' cash flow because cardholders will be able to get a discount only if they pay cash at the time of service, he said.

The IPA expects to charge between $19 and $23 per month to cardholders, who will be entitled to receive discounts of 10% to 25% off the regular fees doctors charge patients not covered by health insurance. The rates will not be lower than Medicare fees.

During the last year and a half, a slew of discount card companies have cropped up, promising consumers access to physicians and hospitals that reportedly have agreed to discount fees by up to 80% if patients pay $26.95 to $89.95 a month to the companies.

The doctors usually don't sign agreements directly with the card companies but end up listed as participating physicians because of the card companies' contracts with PPOs. However, card companies say what they're doing is legal and that they are providing a service that consumers are demanding.