AT&T spends $5.5 billion annually on health care for 1.2 million employees, retirees and their dependents, AT&T’s senior vice president of compensation, benefits and policy Mike Coffey told participants on a teleconference with health care executives yesterday. “That’s more than some states [spend on] Medicare,” Coffey said.
The teleconference, organized by AT&T, explored how technology can help control health care costs and improve patient care.
AT&T has implemented a data warehouse that contains “millions of records of health care claims that we are aggregating to spot trends [and help with] future plan design,” said Coffey.
The company also has made online enrollment the default enrollment method for health care programs. “We’re able to get information into employees’ hands when they are making decisions and we reduced costs because we didn’t have to mail out a ton of documents,” Coffey explained.
AT&T also is a founding member of the Dossia initiative aimed at accelerating the development of technology infrastructure within the health industry to support electronic health records. The “independent personal portable health records” would be “independent of the insurance company,” Coffey said.
What happened to the HIPA laws? I never gave authorization for my medical records to be given to AT&T. This is the beginning of health control by AT&T. They will gather enough info on certain illnesses to put caps on benefits. Way to go AT&T just another slap to your present and past employees.
Who garrantees the security of this data. Like AT&T has never had thier data servers broken into.
Regarding the article and using simple math .. My AT&T health care plan is capped by AT&T to where they contribute a maximum of $US3500.00. Where is the other $1583 going?
Jorge — If you are so worried about this data causing you some harm, then don\\\\\\\’t use the AT&T health care! Just go fund it for yourself, and do not process claims thru your AT&T benefits provider. You do have a choice. If you choose to have the benefits paid for by your employeer, then you choose also to be monitored — just like your email, your PC usage, and your company reimbursed expenses.
If it involves company money being spent, then they are obligated to regulatory agencies, shareholders, and probably others to keep track of it, understand it, and keep it as low as possible. As an Owner of a company, that is what I would want. If you are an employee — you likely have some shares, too. So, it should be what you want, as well.
Isn\’t it interesting how they imply this is the fault of the employee or retiree somehow and not the fault of the inefficient healthcare industry.
There is a bias in this Country where the reason healthcare is so expensive is because the patient is still breathing not because of the lack of any kind of cost controls of the industry itself. You NEVER hear anyone ever say that.
It seems based upon what is repeated in the MSM is that if a bandaid cost $100, that is not the problem. The problem is who is the careless SOB who fell down and skinned their knee.
On new tentative agreement: No significant change from original tentative agreement. Seems like CWA is in bed with AT&T. We need to get a strong union like TEAMSTERS and fire CWA.
How does at&t executive compensation compare to state executives? Not to mention the trappings they adorn themselves with! Have you ever visited their current headquarters or the many of the former regional headquarters? It is opulence ad nauseum! What do they need corporate jets for? Don’t they sell video conferencing…
Mike…You obviously drank all the KOOL AID.