Indiana doctors turn up the heat on Anthem

Physicians in the insurer's home state have become more aggressive in challenging delayed or disputed payments from the health plan.

By Robert Kazel, AMNews staff. Nov. 3, 2003.

An apparent doubling of the number of complaints against Anthem Inc. in its home state of Indiana last year is in part a reflection of increased activism among doctors in filing grievances, according to state insurance officials.

The number of complaints filed in 2002 against the state's largest insurer skyrocketed to 1,129 from 535 the year before, said Greg Thomas, spokesman for the Indiana Dept. of Insurance. The 2002 figures included more than 450 filed by doctors or other medical professionals, he said. Thomas didn't have the number of complaints filed by doctors in 2001 but said it was "very small." Physicians complained most often about delayed payments or disputed payments, such as alleged claims bundling, he said.

The increase in physician complaints might be partly due to Anthem's conversion from a mutual insurer to a for-profit, shareholder-owned company in late 2001, which attracted more attention to the company, Thomas said. Physician complaints against Anthem's business practices also prompted a market conduct examination by insurance department investigators this year, the preliminary results of which will be released to the public in a report the last week of November, he said.

Anthem spokeswoman Deborah New disputed the significance of the statistics, in part because she said online messages sent to the insurance department are always counted as complaints, even if they simply ask questions or express comments about a particular plan. Thomas acknowledged that any message filed with his department on a complaint form is considered to be a complaint.