http://www.jsonline.com/bym/news/oct99/comp21102099.asp

Milwaukee County warns Compcare

Employee complaints about billings prompt threat to cancel HMO

By Joe Manning of the Journal Sentinel staff

Last Updated: Oct. 20, 1999

Milwaukee County has threatened to cancel its employee health care contract with Compcare Health Services Insurance Corp. after what the county termed numerous employee complaints about billing problems.

The threat came in a letter to Compcare Oct. 14 from Gary Dobbert, director of the county's human resources department.

Compcare has 173,000 members. Employees of Milwaukee County and their dependents make up one of the HMO's largest groups.

Dobbert's concerns come after physicians last year claimed they were owed millions of dollars in unpaid bills by Compcare and its affiliated health insurance company, Blue Cross & Blue Shield United of Wisconsin. Physicians generally agree most of those problems have been resolved.

Dobbert this week sent letters to county employees pointing out that because of Compcare's billing problems, some may wish to select other HMOs. About 4,000 employees and retirees have health care through Compcare. The county is currently in an open enrollment period, when employees can select health coverage plans.

The letter to employees suggested there were other HMOs offering generally the same set of physicians as Compcare.

"We have talked with Compcare a number of times and not gotten a clear explanation (of the reasons) for problems," Dobbert said.

He claimed Compcare had not straightened out its computer problems since "about a year ago" when Compcare began upgrading its computers to be Y2K compliant.

[snip to end]

Post-rollover, problems like this will get fixed in days. Right, Pollies???

-- gone (ste@l.th), October 21, 1999

Answers

Sounds like a rerun of the Oxford Healthcare computerized billing fiasco which Cory Hamasaki detailed a few months back. I wonder did they both use the same software vendor?

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), October 21, 1999.

Any company that has decided to undergo a major upgrade (like Compcare) or new implementation to become complaint *after* rollover deserves to die. The time when anyone has the "luxury" to address their y2k issues in this manner has about run out. For many, Fix on Failure may be workable. Upgrade on Failure is foolish.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 21, 1999.