“ Vimo helps people save money and make smarter decisions about doctors, hospitals and insurance.” - Chini, CEO VIMO

Dear Friends,
Happy First Birthday to… Vimo!
This week our bouncing baby one-year-old changed its name from Healthia to Vimo. We hope the new moniker communicates vim, vigor, energy and enthusiasm – collectively characterizing our commitment to consumers in their quest for reliable information that will make their health care experience better, cheaper and easier to navigate.

At Vimo, we think shopping for healthcare should be a lot more like shopping for anything else. You should be able to compare price, quality and service levels before you write the check. Vimo makes that possible. Vimo offers consumers real comparisons, independent benchmarks and user reviews that help them weigh their options and find the best value.

We’ve had a great quarter, starting with oversubscribed B-round of funding led by Trinity Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners, and capped off with our recent acquisition of Cordova, a company that markets a dynamic financial model to analyze the value of health plans and help people. Cordova’s technology will broaden Vimo’s product offerings and enable us to provide truly vendor-neutral, unbiased advisory services to help individual consumers and employers make informed decisions regarding HSAs and high deductible health plans.

So here’s to new beginnings! Watch this space for lots of exciting new product and service announcements from Vimo. We’re comparison shopping for your health.

Warmly,

Chini Krishnan
President, Vimo Inc.

Introducing MyVimo:

The First Intelligent “Personal Shopper” for Health

We’re not just changing our name. We’re raising the bar for health shopping on the web. This week Vimo announced the launch of MyVimo, and intelligent “personal shopper” that helps you keep track of the providers and procedures important to you and your family. MyVimo automatically updates you on any changes to the Vimo records of your favorite doctors, including any new reviews, licenses, malpractice awards or disciplinary actions. With MyVimo, you can even look up what health insurance a given doctor accepts, without browsing through dozens of individual insurance company websites. And lots more is coming. Within the next few months, MyVimo will send you price alerts for any medical procedure or healthcare plan that you want to track. So when prices rise – or drop – you’ll be the first to know. Try it today!

Sign up for MyVimo now »

“Nobody spends somebody else´s money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else´s resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property.”

–Milton Friedman

PUNDITSPEAK

Vimo´s early investor, David Cowan, as depicted recently in

“We´ve been feeling the ‘precursor quakes’ in the healthcare market for several years now… little rumblings, getting stronger and more frequent, hinting that a big market shift is on the way. There´s just a huge amount of pressure building up on consumers and small businesses, and we think that´s a big reason why Vimo´s vision is so compelling.”

David Cowan, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners.

History Corner

The first health insurance plans began during the Civil War (1861-1865). The earliest ones only offered coverage against accidents related from travel by rail or steamboat. The plans did, however, pave the way more comprehensive plans covering all illnesses and injuries. The first group policy giving comprehensive benefits was offered by Massachusetts Health Insurance of Boston in 1847.

In the News

Modernizing Medicare: Middlesex Doctors Testing ‘Pay For Performance’ System

Source– The Hartford Courant, Hilary Waldman, Published September 25, 2006

In a report to Congress released Thursday, the respected Institute of Medicine endorsed the system called "pay for performance," under which doctors who treat Medicare patients would get paid more for doing a better job. Read more...

Survey: Health Insurance Premiums for SMBs Fell in 2006

- Small Biz Pipeline, September 26, 2006

Health insurance coverage for small employers is more affordable than is widely known, a new survey released today by America´s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) found. Read more..

In Depth

Measuring the Financial Value of Health Savings Accounts(HSAs) Fairly

#1 in a series by Tom Cochrane, CFA and Vice President of Partnerships, Vimo.

There are clear and compelling reasons to be excited about Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). Results starting from the inception of the HSAs just 2 and a half years ago lend credence to this optimism:

• Over 3,000,000 individual accounts have been established.

• More than a third of new HSA account holders in the individual market had previously been uninsured.

• More than a quarter of the qualified plans purchased in the small group market were by employers who had not previously offered coverage.

• HSA-based plans have proven affordable, with the vast majority of purchasers paying less than $200 per person per month.

• Market growth projections are off the charts, with estimates of compound annual growth rates between 2006 and 2010 in excess of 50%.

• There has been a massive amount of investment from health insurers, financial services companies and information technology providers in HSA-related services and consumer directed health in general.

At the same time however, critics point to the possibilities of adverse selection, premium death spirals and rising personal bankruptcies attributable to mounting health care bills. Some observers predict dire scenarios in which flawed health care policies push individuals to the “tipping point” of removing their own teeth rather than visiting a dentist.

So what to make of the “American HSA” in light of this mix of information and opinions? Is it a progressive juggernaut or a step to the dark side? Is there a way to cut through the noise and objectively measure the value of the vehicle based on information that is readily available?

What to Measure

It is important to establish from the start what, exactly, will be measured and what I will attempt to accomplish. That’s because health care is an enormous industry with a vast number of issues that extend beyond the financing decision. To be clear, I am talking about the financing rather than the delivery of health care products and services. HSAs simply represent an alternative form of health care funding. In other words, I will not attempt to measure the relative quality of health plans, providers, levels of customer service, health outcomes, or various health care products and services. The objective here is to describe a methodology that is useful in quantifying the relative value of various forms of health care funding.

HSAs are Truly Different

That being said, HSAs certainly throw a new wrinkle into the world of health care finance. Some of the unique features of HSAs include:

• HSAs combine a highly (in fact, triple) tax-advantaged personal savings account with a high deductible health insurance plan.

• HSAs involve the use of savings rather than insurance to health care expeditures.

• The HSA is a form of private property that is portable between jobs.

• Unused funds in an HSA accrue over time and can be invested by the account owner, largely as he or she chooses.

Essentially, the HSA is a lifelong health care funding vehicle coupled with a catastrophic insurance policy, and for many people that makes it a compelling choice.

Different Analytical Methods are Required

Consider, for example, the challenge of comparing a fully-funded, low deductible group health plan (a “conventional plan”) with an HDHP+HSA combination (an “HSA plan”). In most instances, the conventional plan will be (a lot) more expensive than the HSA plan. Because the plans are structured so differently, though, simply comparing gross premium costs does not provide nearly enough information to make a reasonable decision regarding their relative value.

Many issues arise when comparing a conventional plan to an HSA plan:

• It is almost certain that the HSA plan will result in health care expenses that are not covered by insurance. How big will those expenses be? And how does one utilize this information to make a reasonable decision about which plan to choose?

• On the other hand, HSAs also have the potential to create great value for employees since unused balances accrue over time and the accounts are portable. What might these future balances look like on an individual and plan-wide basis, and how would this affect future financial decisions?

• How does one create an equitable and reasonable employee premium contribution formula for an HSA+HDHP plan?

• How much should an employer contribute to employees´ HSAs to make them attractive enough to adopt, yet still financially sustainable?

Taking everything into consideration, are there standard measures of value that can be used to effectively compare conventional health insurance plans and HSA-compatible plans? The answer is yes.

A New Approach

There is a clear need for analytical techniques that make the benefits of HSA-based plans demonstrable to everyone involved. In order to address this need, in the coming months Vimo will provide visitors with a free web-based application that helps users better visualize how their HSAs work, grow and compare to other types of healthcare coverage.

This article and the series that will follow will provide a detailed discussion of Vimo´s HSA Simulator™ application and its underlying technology, using actual case studies. My goal is to increase awareness and understanding of this new class of health coverage, especially for those that are actively in the market for new insurance.

Thomas Cochrane, CFA, is Vice President of Partnerships at Vimo. Tom welcomes comments and feedback, and he can be reached at tom@vimo.com.

Broker Spotlight

Jason D. Pierce, CEP & Danielle L. Kunkle, CEP
Consumer Benefits Group, LLP North Richland Hills, TX

Q: How did Consumer Benefits Group begin to educate the general public on HSAs when President Bush first introduced them?

A: Consumer Benefits Group has had the fortunate opportunity to work with HSAs since their release in the beginning of 2004. Our client base that we already worked with were primarily small business owners that wanted a higher deductible plan to begin with. Their concern wasn´t the smaller dollar costs such as standard doctor visits or prescriptions; it was the catastrophic costs associated with hospitalization and surgical procedures.

This allowed us to put together a program that branched off from that concept and also gave them the opportunity to pay those every day costs with pre-tax money as well as build a retirement nest egg. It was from there that we began marketing this concept to accountants and financial advisors. Once they understood the concept, they trusted CBG to be the one that assisted their clients with setting up the correct plan.

Q: How do you feel about Vimo´s programs for brokers?

A: Vimo puts us in front of people that we want to talk to - and who want to talk to us. We know that these people are specifically looking for education regarding how the H.S.A. functions and how it can benefit them in their quest for reducing their health care costs.

I believe that the uniqueness of Vimo´s program is just what we have been looking for. It allows everyone to have a vested interest in making sure that people looking for information about healthcare and insurance are quickly matched up with the folks nearby who can help them. We´ve worked with Vimo on multiple occasions.

Average Asking Price of a Hernia Surgery Tops $10,000 – and Some Health Plans Won´t Cover It...

By Erik Espe

One million Americans have hernia surgery every year, but few of them can afford to pay the bill without insurance. According to new hospital price information posted on Vimo, the average hospital´s asking price of an inguinal or femoral hernia surgery topped $10,000 for an adult male in the United States this year... and more often than you’d think, insurance carriers won´t cover the procedure.

For many patients with insurance, most hernia surgery costs will be covered. Unfortunately, some health plans qualify forms of hernia surgery as "elective." A 1999 study in American Family Physician warned about the consequences of not covering hernia surgery because of cost concerns. "In the managed-care environment, elective herniorrhaphy is under increasing pressure. Some state health plans do not reimburse for elective hernia repairs. The long-term impact of complications secondary to untreated herniation is not fully known. A decrease in surgical repair may lead to an increase in hospitalizations related to incarceration or strangulation."

While hernias have often been associated with weight lifting, they can actually turn up without heavy exercise. A hernia patient was likely born with an area of weakness in his or her abdominal wall. Pressure from strenuous exercise, obesity or even coughing can cause part of an internal organ to "bulge" through a wall in the body.

In the event of "strangulation," when blood supply is cut off from the "bulge," the condition can quickly become a life-or-death emergency requiring hernia surgery.

Given the high price of a hernia surgery, it is essential for health consumers to select solid health plans that will cover non-emergency hernia repairs, and to never go without insurance if they can help it. Independent sites that help consumers compare plans from different carriers, like Vimo, can help. If you have to get hernia surgery and you´re not insured, be sure to check hospital prices at Vimo first... It can save you thousands of dollars. Affordable plans exist that will cover emergency and non-emergency cases. Health Savings Accounts can also be used with high-deductible plans to offset the financial burden of an operation.

Erik Espe is a veteran health writer and Chief Editor at Vimo. To contact Erik, write to erik@vimo.com

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