Rhode Island Blue Cross & Blue Shield Launches Second Study to Look at State Residents’ Health Status
Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island will conduct a $2 million, five-year study of the state's "health-care needs and the health-care system's ability to meet them," the Providence Journal reports. The study, called the Statewide Health Assessment Planning and Evaluation Study, or SHAPE, will be conducted by Booz Allen Hamilton and RAND. SHAPE will examine the state's demographic trends and the "health status of people"; make projections for the future of health care; and look at "available resources," including hospital beds and physicians. However, according to the Journal, the study will avoid "two hot-button issues" -- how to control costs and how much to pay providers. Ronald Battista, president of Blue Cross, said the study is an "outgrowth" of Project BluePrint (Freyer, Providence Journal, 11/29). As part of the $1.8 million Project BluePrint, BCBS of Rhode Island sent written surveys to each Rhode Island household, surveyed a sampling of residents by telephone and hosted a series of public forums. When announced, the project was criticized as an "expensive marketing campaign and a misuse of premium dollars" (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 1/31).
Use of Premium Dollars Criticized
SHAPE also has met with criticism; some health advocates raised concerns about the "credibil[ity] and objectiv[ity]" of a study sponsored by the state's "most dominant" health insurer. Kate Coyne-McCoy, executive director of the Rhode Island chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, said, "It cannot be objective. People who pay for something get what they ask for." She added that it is "inappropriate for a company with such a large stake in the outcome to sponsor the study." Expressing concern about the use of premium funds to conduct the study, Coyne-McCoy added, "We have families in Rhode Island that spend five, six, seven hundred dollars a month on Blue Cross -- so that Ron Battista can hire a consultant to do a study? It's insulting." But Battista defended the role of BCBS, "pledg[ing] to keep its hands off the information-gathering and the results." He said, "The $2 million [to fund the study] is a drop in the bucket when you look at the $35 billion being spent (on health care statewide) over the next five years." Battista added that without the study, the premium money would be spent without "the information needed to gauge [its] value" (Providence Journal, 11/29).
