Enrollment drop has United vowing to be nicer

Faced with waning commercial membership, UnitedHealth Group executives promise to improve its relationships with physicians and patients.

By Emily Berry, AMNews staff. Jan. 14, 2008.

Health plans often declare that they want to have good relationships with their physicians. But UnitedHealth Group has at least 315,000 reasons to make extra nice.

That number represents the 2007 slide that the insurer experienced in employer-sponsored and individual memberships. The company attributes the loss, in part, to frayed relations with patients and physicians. At a Dec. 4, 2007, investors' meeting in New York, United pledged that improvements were on the way.

Among United's promises: It will show doctors and patients the day of a doctor's visit how a claim will be paid; doctors will be paid more quickly; and United employees will be given incentives for quality and patient advocacy first, productivity second.

"We understand relationships, and we recognize that this is a health system that needs to work for everyone, not just for us," United Executive Vice President David Wichmann, who oversees individual and employer group markets, told the investors.

The company placed much of the blame for its service problems on the difficulty of integrating its health plan acquisitions. In particular, United said it had mishandled the transition of PacifiCare, acquired for $8.8 billion in 2005.

"We pursued too much change too fast, and the results were too disruptive," Wichmann said.

Lately, United has made many promises to behave better, from a 36-state settlement regarding its conduct toward physicians to an apology from CEO Stephen Hemsley for a stock-options backdating scandal. But doctors said their problems with United are long-running. They are skeptical that the situation will get better just because the company says it will.