ATLANTA – Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia (BCBSGa) has launched an emergency room education campaign, incorporating Google Maps to make it easier for consumers to find and use retail health clinics and urgent care centers for non-emergency conditions.
"When your five-year-old is crying with a fever at 7 p.m. on a Friday because she has a sore throat or an ear ache, what do you do?" asked Manish Oza, MD, an ER physician and medical director for WellPoint in Silver Spring, Md. "It is important for people to know that they have options for less serious ailments other than an ER, such as retail health clinics and urgent care centers that provide quality care and cost them significantly less."
[See also: BCBS Virginia aims to cut unneeded ER visits.]
Emergency rooms that contract with BCBSGa generally charge an average $478 to treat strep throat – compared with $66 at urgent care centers and $34 at retail health clinics. Consumers can save out-of-pocket expenses because ER copays range from $100 to $150, compared with $25 to $60 for retail health clinics and urgent care centers.
"Not only were the ER program's online tools developed to be easy to use—but they are available to everyone," said Morgan Kendrick, president, BCBSGa. "All you have to do is go to Google, Yahoo! or Bing, and type in 'Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia (or BCBSGa) and urgent care' and our educational site will pop up with a link to help you find other options for participating ER alternatives. The link will also provide information on when it's appropriate to use these alternatives."
The webpage helps determine when it's appropriate to go to the emergency room.
"We see in our data that the highest rates of avoidable ER use are among people 34 and younger – those who are less likely to have a primary care physician but more likely to be technology consumers," said Oza. "We chose to develop Google Maps and create online advertising because that's where people go for information when they're deciding whether to go to the ER or not."
[See also: ER wait times reduced 22 percent with advanced EHRs.]
About 17 percent of all visits to hospital emergency departments nationally could potentially be treated at retail medical clinics or urgent care centers for an estimated savings of $4.4 billion, according to a recent RAND Corp. study. ER visits also are getting longer. Georgia ranked 32nd nationally in the length of its ER waits, with an average of 249 minutes.
Research performed from January 2009 through June 2010 by HealthCore showed that a pilot program with a commercially insured population in Virginia, which included member education via e-mails and online advertising, in addition to financial incentives and a Google map finder for retail health clinics and urgent care centers, assisted in members' decisions to use ER alternatives for non-emergency care.
The research showed that ER use for conditions that could be treated at retail health or urgent care clinics decreased in 2010 from 2009 for all populations studied. Specifically, HealthCore reported a 14 percent decrease in ER visits for those who participated in the program, compared with those who did not. The decrease in visits covered minor sicknesses or conditions that could be treated elsewhere.
"This program demonstrates that by empowering members with information on appropriate resources, they can still get the care they need while helping to control health care costs," said Robert McCormack, MD, medical director for BCBSGa.
After the intervention period, the group participating in the program was more than twice as likely to seek treatment for non-emergency conditions at retail health clinics than those who did not participate.
BCBSGa's program includes:
- Ads on Google, Yahoo! and Bing that drive visitors to an educational site explaining when it's appropriate to use ER alternatives, such as retail health clinics and urgent care centers.
- A Google map, available to everyone, that provides the location of ER alternatives in Anthem's network throughout the state so that consumers can easily find them.
- Automated calls to educate members whose recent ER visits were potentially avoidable, and e-mails to members interested in learning more information.
- Educational pieces mailed explaining the type of conditions that could be treated at ER alternatives and potential differences in cost.
