Reducing Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care

      Monday mornings are still the worst at the office.  As you know, Massachusetts already has a universal health plan for all it's residents.  Everyone in Massachusetts must have medical insurance.  We are mandated to offer medical insurance to our employees.  I received my quarterly news letter this morning from Blue Cross and was a little surprised at one of the updates which follows:

      Reducing Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care

Research has demonstrated measurable differences in the care provided to people in Massachusetts based on their race and ethnicity. In the September IAI,    we informed you of a statewide initiative, led by the Massachusetts Health Care Quality and Cost Council (HCQCC), aimed at understanding this trend.

As a representative on the HCQCC advisory committee, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts has helped develop the regulations requiring health plans to collect race, ethnicity, and language-preference data from at least two percent of their in-state members by July 2010.

We believe that coming to a greater understanding of the racial, ethnic, and linguistic makeup of our members is an important contribution to our efforts to better serve our members. The insights generated by this survey will help shape new programs and services, and enhance our understanding of our members’ need for materials translated into other languages.

We are currently conducting this survey at  which is also accessible through Member Central.

The survey may generate questions from members. If you or your employees have any concerns about this request for this information, please rest assured that:

•  Sharing this information is completely voluntary

•  We will not share any information that could identify members or their families

•  Keeping members’ personal information confidential is protected by law

•  The decision to share this racial, ethnic, or language information will have no effect on the coverage members receive from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts

•  In accordance with the law protecting patient confidentiality, data will be delivered a way such that no individually identifiable information will be shared

If you have further questions about this survey, please contact your account executive.

  My first reaction was just that of more work for me.  I then read it again and thought racial, ethnic profiling?  If this is happening in Massachusetts, is it going to be part of the Obamacare that the Congress is working on behind closed doors.  I was also reminded of the terror attacks on the country and the airport delays.  I was under the impression that this administration in not in any way in favor of profiling!  Odd...