Imagine being able to spend an entire hour talking with your doctor about your medical problems -- and not even getting stuck with a co-pay. And you could come in as often as you'd like. That's the vision of a partnership between Seattle's Swedish Hospital and the Premera Blue Cross insurance company. The key to the system is that Premera will pay Swedish an amount in the hundreds of dollars annually per patient to provide all the care the person needs. That removes the incentive to provide unnecessary care, which Premera and Swedish hope will hold down overall health care costs, says a story by Kyung M. Song for the Seattle Times.
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