Study Finds Media’s HMO Coverage Mostly Neutral

In the current movie “As Good as It Gets,” actress Helen Hunt launches into a tirade about the “greedy” HMO she accuses of withholding medical care for her asthmatic son. Moviegoers across the country are erupting in cheers and applause at the scene.

This is not what the managed-care industry would hope for as it prepares to do battle with a Congress that appears primed to push for sweeping legislative reforms.

But the movie scene serves as an example of something managed-care officials have been complaining about for several years.

They contend that the media--newspapers and television, mainly--are creating a “backlash” against HMOs through coverage that is biased and laden with emotional anecdotes that portray the industry as villains, the patients as victims. Citing opinion surveys that indicate that 75% or more of HMO members are “satisfied” with their health plans, the industry blames the media for focusing on they say are a relative few incidents involving unhappy customers.

Now along comes the Kaiser Family Foundation with a study that takes some--but not all--of the steam out of the industry’s argument.

The study by the nonprofit health-care charity (which is not affiliated with the Kaiser Permanente HMO) found that 64% of the stories in daily newspaper, magazines and TV network news programs from 1990 to 1997 were “neutral” in tone. During that period, 25% of stories were critical of managed care, while 11% praised it.

The study, published in the journal Health Affairs, also found that 75% of stories used no anecdotes at all, and only 5% used anecdotes with “high drama.”

For an industry that is sparking a storm of controversy as it endeavors to remake American medicine, those numbers don’t seem so lopsided.

“The media alone is not the sole cause of the backlash,” said Mollyanne Brodie, a senior researcher at the Kaiser Family Foundation and coauthor of the study. Brodie and her researchers systematically reviewed coverage in newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times; magazines such as Time and BusinessWeek; and the ABC, CBS and NBC evening news programs.

But the study also found that news coverage has grown decidedly more critical over time. In 1990, positive stories about managed care appeared twice as often as critical ones.

By 1997, 28% of stories were critical, while only 4% were positive.

In an accompanying article in Health Affairs, Karen Ignani, executive director of the American Assn. of Health Plans, wrote that managed-care critics “have become adroit at selectively publicizing alleged denials of service and failures of care, which are then amplified by the media and become the basis for hastily considered legislation enacted in the name of consumer protection.”

Membership Perks: One of California’s biggest HMOs, Health Net, is rolling out a service designed to encourage loyalty among its 2.2 million members.

Health Net says its “WellRewards” program will provide its members with significant discounts on a variety of health-related products and services. Those products include vitamins, health club memberships, exercise equipment, home-health supplies, and products and services for babies and pets.

Health Net officials say the program is designed to encourage members to adopt healthy lifestyles. But the HMO also hopes it will help it keep members from defecting to rival plans.

As health plans merge and employers switch medical coverage to cut costs or improve services, HMOs face an ongoing problem of how to retain members.

Industrywide, managed-care plans have averaged a 15% annual turnover in membership, officials say.

David Olmos can be reached by e-mail at david.olmos@latimes.com or by fax at (213) 237-7837.