Health insurance IT isn't dead, it just smells funny

Posted by Mark Everett Hall



Part of the reason for that huge difference is that the large private insurance companies keep an army of software developers and IT operations staff, along with attendant analysts and administrators, employed to run applications designed to deny claims of sick people. They use computer automation to make it "more efficient" to deny claims to as many people as possible. But the people needed to support those systems will soon no longer be necessary.

altI suspect some of these highly paid individuals probably had a tough time looking in the mirror each morning while thinking about, say, how to perfect an algorithm for detecting pre-existing conditions in people who did not know they had them; or how to create an analyst's dashboard that shows when payments for cancer treatments exceed some CFO's spending target for the quarter.


Across the country I'm guesstimating that a few thousand more IT folks will hit the unemployment line. It'll be difficult for them to find work. They have the extra burden of being perceived as having skills of limited value.


But these newly unemployed will have one thing in their favor, at least they'll be able to get health insurance.