Cigna To Fully Disclose How Doctors Are Ranked
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

Under an agreement with Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the health insurance company Cigna will redesign its doctor-ranking program to add transparency, accuracy, and oversight to the process.
Under the agreement announced yesterday, Cigna will fully disclose to its customers how the rankings are devised. The new process will include detailed descriptions if rankings are at all based on cost, and there will be a process for consumers to register complaints. Cigna will also be required to hire an independent monitor to oversee the process. The monitor will report to Mr. Cuomo’s office every six months. The new ranking system will take effect in December 2008, and it will only affect New York customers, Cigna’s chief medical officer, Dr. Jeffrey Kang, said.
Earlier this year, Mr. Cuomo began an investigation into doctor-ranking systems, calling on leading insurance carriers, including Aetna, United Healthcare, and Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, to re-evaluate how they rank doctors.
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STUDYING EXERCISE DURING CHEMOTHERAPY
With the idea of exercising during cancer treatment no longer considered taboo, doctors at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center now aim to change traditional philosophies even further by proving that physical activity can actually benefit patients.
In an upcoming pilot study, 100 breast cancer patients will combine aerobic exercise, resistance training, and light weight lifting. Among researchers’ goals: to increase flexibility, to prevent weight gain, and to reduce scar tissue and fatigue. “Our goal is to help them after they’ve had their surgery and before they start their chemotherapy,” an attending breast surgeon who is one of the leaders of the study, Dr. Alexandra Heerdt, said.
The pilot study, still awaiting final hospital approval, would take place over a six-month period. The concept originated with a group of breast cancer patients participating in an exercise class. “Like anything, if you become sedentary, your muscles will become weaker,” a clinical nurse specialist/fitness coordinator, Donna Wilson, the other study co-leader, said.
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RALLY FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH COVERAGE
Health advocates, union members, and representatives of the hospital industry plan to rally for universal health care coverage today in Midtown Manhattan.
Dozens of representatives from the health care workers’ union 1199 SEIU and the Greater New York Hospital Association are expected to gather outside the New Yorker Hotel, where a public hearing on universal insurance is also planned for today.
The hearing is the fourth in a series of meetings convened in connection with Governor Spitzer’s “Partnership for Coverage.”
“We can think of no higher priority than to provide all New Yorkers with access to affordable health insurance,” GNYHA’s president, Kenneth Raske, said yesterday.
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BUSINESS GROUP PROMOTES DEPRESSION SCREENING
A coalition of New York businesses has launched a program to promote depression screening.
The New York Business Group on Health, along with the city’s Health Department and the National Alliance of Mental Illness, is rolling out its “One Voice” program this month, which encourages mental health screenings in primary care settings.
In New York, more than 430,000 adults suffer from depression. However, nearly half go untreated, according to health officials. They said 15% of the total reported that depression limits their ability to work.
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NEW SCHOOL HOSTS HEALTH CARE FORUM
The authors of several pieces of health care legislation participated at a public forum yesterday on health care reform hosted by the New School.
The talk, titled “Reforming Healthcare: Solutions from the U.S. Congress,” was moderated by the school’s president, Bob Kerrey.
Lawmakers including senators Bennett of Utah, Burr of North Carolina, Coburn of Oklahoma, and Wyden of Oregon and Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan discussed their health care legislation.
“All of us share a common desire” to fix health care, Mr. Wyden told audience members. “We’re spending enough money today on health care,” he said, but “we’re not spending it in the right places.
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GROWING MUSTACHES FOR CHARITY
Hundreds of men in New York and nationwide are raising money for prostate cancer research — by growing mustaches. The “Movember” campaign, which kicks off November 1, is not a “traditional” charity event, a co-founder, Adam Garone, said. Initially, the movement grew out of a joke between Mr. Garone and friends, who wanted to bring mustaches back into vogue. Last year, an estimated 45,000 men in Australia and 10,000 in New Zealand took part in the health campaign and raised close to $8 million.
“For the first time ever, young men were actually talking about prostate cancer,” Mr. Garone said.
esolomont@nysun.com