Dr. Mehmet Oz appears at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on his nomination to be administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Credit: Senate Finance
Dr. Mehmet Oz gave clear, detailed, confident-sounding answers today during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on his nomination to be the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
CMS is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. As CMS chief, he would help shape any federal laws, regulations or procedures that affect health benefits at insured and self-funded employer-sponsored health plans as well as the Medicare and Medicaid programs.
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Oz has been a professor of cardiothoracic surgery at Columbia University's medical school, the host of well-known television talk shows, and famous for being a strong supporter of the Medicare Advantage program. In connection with some of his business activities, he obtained an insurance producer license.
At the hearing, he emphasized the need to provide high-quality, compassionate care while also holding down spending.
"I believe that a physician has a responsibility to tell patients what they need to know, even if the message is uncomfortable," Oz said. "Health care expenditures are growing 2% to 3% faster than our economy. That's not sustainable."
Obesity, poor diet and lack of exercise are partly responsible for the high U.S. maternal mortality rate and the fact the U.S. life expectancy is now five years shorter than in comparable countries, Oz said.
CMS needs to do more to promote healthy lifestyles, he said.
"The most expensive care we give is bad care," Oz said.
Making it easier and more affordable to adopt healthy lifestyles can improve care while making it more affordable, he added.
Oz gave changes to health insurance companies and health plan prior authorization programs, or efforts by plans to make sure proposed treatments are safe, effective, affordable and covered by the plan, as an example of a change that could make health insurance work better for physicians and patients.
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Today, he said, the typical health plan subjects about 3,000 procedures to prior authorization reviews, and each plan subjects a different set of procedures to review, so that about 5,000 different procedures could be subject to review.
One way to improve the system would be to adopt a set of 1,000 procedures subject to review at all plans, and create real-time systems that could let providers know if a proposed course of care will be subject to review, Oz said.
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Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
