Announcing new online resource: RateTheInsurer.org — “Grade, lookup, decide.”
6 September 2022
Madison, WI — Promising “Nothing but the truth about insurance companies,” RateTheInsurer.org is pleased to announce its relaunch as an online resource for mental health clinicians and consumers. The website intends to “tip the scale” toward increased transparency into health insurance reimbursement for mental and behavioral health services, and clinician quality ratings of insurance companies.
“Some years after taking down the original ‘Rate The Insurer’ web site, I continue to field inquiries asking ‘Where is the website, is there any new information on insurance companies, how much this particular insurance company reimbursing, how is that company to deal with?” says Dr. Gordon Herz. He adds, “I have come to believe that clinicians want the information, resources are scarce, and the public deserves to know.”
Dr. Herz has been active in mental healthcare financing advocacy, research and writing since beginning in clinical psychology practice in 1992, through organizational affiliations and independently. He believes insurance companies will not tell the truth about what they are like to work with, how intrusive they are in therapist-client relationships, or basic facts such as how much they actually reimburse, until a clinician is locked into a contract. Mental health clinicians need to understand these factors in order to make sound business decisions so they can keep their doors open and continue to serve the public. Opportunities for consumers to grade their experiences with insurance companies are planned for the future.
“Insurance companies most definitely monitor your specific practice patterns, and ‘outcomes.’ We’re in an era of transparency and big data. It’s time to tip the scale, collect quality and reimbursement data about these companies from clinicians’ perspectives, and report these publicly,” adds Dr. Herz.
RateTheInsurer.org will offer the “Therapists’ Insurer Profiling (TIP) Scale©” as a way to grade insurance companies from A to F on variables that matter to clinicians and to consumers. The website will also allow reporting amounts reimbursed for mental/behavioral health services and aggregate and report the data for easy lookup by insurance company and regions of the country.
###