The Rake Magazine

Tag: health insurance

  • 11 Things I Wish I Didn't Know about Petey P. Cup

    In an attempt to one-up United Health for most ridiculous Minnesota-based health insurance company, HealthPartners (relatively) recently announced its new Mascot, Petey P. Cup. He’s a giant urine specimen container with arms, legs, feelings, and no shame. Since then I’ve learned quite a bit about Petey P. Cup and his sidekick Pokey the Syringe. Here are eleven things I’ve learned about HealthPartners’ new campaign.

     

     

    1. In order to promote Petey P. Cup HealthPartners employees were given urine specimen containers with yellow M&Ms inside. Why do I get the feeling that someone at HealthPartners originally wanted to serve lemonade in the cups but had the idea quashed by higher-ups?
    2. Petey P. Cup is part of a larger campaign by local agency Kerker that involves placing, among other things, giant tongue depressors, syringes and pill capsules around town.
    3. According to MPR, The first person to don the Petey P. Cup outfit also played Santa Claus at several HealthPartner’s parties. I certainly hope he received a significant bonus.
    4. The idea came from Greg Klugherz, vice president finance, planning and improvement for the HealthPartners Medical Group is the person who came up with the idea for Petey P. Cup (also from MPR). Yes, planning and improvement.
    5. According to a HealthPartner’s profile about Petey P. Cup. His favorite songs are (and I’m not making this up):"Yellow" by Coldplay, "Splish Splash", "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and Don Ho’s "Tiny Bubbles". Although, it Pokey’s favorite tunes have not been made known, I’d place James Brown’s "King Heroin" and "Sister Morphine" by the Rolling Stones near the top of the list.
    6. That same profile says that Petey P. Cup is 6’11 and his weight "depends".
    7. In the pipeline for HealthPartners’ dental division is a tooth named Pearly White. I’m sure she has a cousin named Denny Denture in the works as well.
    8. Petey P. Cup can be your facebook friend. Currently, he has 408 "friends" and I am not one of them.
    9. You can purchase Petey and Pokey merchandise including a Pokey baseball jersey for your kids, a $15 Petey P. Cup yard sign, and a Petey P. Cup clock that, at $11, is cheaper than the yard sign.
    10. Petey P. Cup and friends are supposed to make the health care process more "fun" and "memorable" for HealthPartners members, according to MPR. Apparently, suggestions like "become more affordable" and "cover treatment for my ailment", failed to leave a positive impression during focus group testing.
    11. Petey P. Cup has a YouTube video!

    Good grief.

  • No Surprise Here, UnitedHealth Rides Again

    It’s not any surprise to those who’ve followed the sordid history of UnitedHealth Group to see that the company is being sued by the Attorney General of New York for manipulating the reimbursement rates for their insured who go outside of the network for their care.

    It seems United reimburses its customers based on a formula which calculates the "customary" charges for services in the New York area. Of course, the "customary" charges are calculated by a third party. In this case a company called Ingenix, which happens to be owned by UnitedHealth.

    An investigation by the state showed that a "customary" charge for a doctor visit in New York City was $200. Ingenix said it was $77. I don’t know if any of you have been to the doctor lately, but the charge in Minneapolis passed $77 quite some time ago. I’m fairly certain that I read somewhere that New York is more expensive to live in than Minneapolis.

    As NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said, “We believe there was an industrywide scheme perpetuated by some of the
    nation’s largest health insurers to deceive and defraud consumers.”

    Ya think?