Some companies send employees on 'surgery trips' to cut health costs

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.omaha.com/article/20121127/LIVEWELL03/711279964/1707#some-companies-send-employees-on-surgery-trips-to-cut-health-costs

The Los Angeles Times-Omaha World-Herald

Carol and Ed Vogel enjoyed a weeklong all-expenses-paid trip to a Newport Beach, Calif., resort last month, and they’re scheduled to return soon.

The Nevada couple didn’t need frequent-flier miles or credit card rewards to get free airfare and hotel stay as well as $1,000 in spending money. It was all because of Carol Vogel’s ailing hips and an employer’s frustration with the cost of U.S. health care.

Her husband’s employer, newspaper publisher Stephens Media, sends employees and their family members needing hip and knee replacements to a handful of hospitals across the country that agreed to a low, fixed rate for surgery and scored well on quality of care.

This year, grocery giant Kroger Co. has flown nearly two dozen workers to hospitals across the U.S. for hip, knee or spinal-fusion surgeries in an effort to save money and improve care. Starting in January, Walmart Stores Inc. will offer employees and dependents heart, spine and transplant surgeries at no cost at six major hospital systems across the nation, with free travel and lodging.

(Walmart???)

FULL story at link.

Photo: http://www.omaha.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=OW&Date=20121127&Category=LIVEWELL03&ArtNo=711279964&Ref=AR&Profile=1707&maxw=745&maxh=400

mcclatchy newspapers

Dr. James Caillouette, left, of the Hoag Orthopedic Institute in Irvine, Calif., discusses a hip replacement with Ralph Davis. “Now there’s one bill, and employers can budget for it,” Caillouette said of bundled payments for surgeries. “This has the potential to be a game-changer.”

More Photos (2)Published Tuesday November 27, 2012

[spedtr90]

1. Market forces bringing us closer to universal care?

[Brickbat]

2. I always find it odd that people who scream and cry about government getting between them and their

doctors are just fine when corporations do it.

[hootinholler]

3. So we are replacing the company store with the company hospital?

Looks like that's what we've done with insurance.