Health Populi: Opening access to primary care, IBM drops copays

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by Jane Sarasohn-Kahn

IBM is dropping the $20 co-payment for employees' visits to primary care doctors.

The Wall Street Journal covers this story today.

The "no co-pay" scheme will cover employees enrolled in IBM's self-insured health plan -- excluding workers enrolled in HMOs. Overall, IBM has 115,000 employees and spends $1.3 billion on health care.

The WSJ quotes SVP of IBM's human resources Randy MacDonald, who said that emphasizing primary care is part of an overall "wellness" strategy that tries to keep costs low by preventing illness.

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