The INSURE Project on Lifecycle Preventive Health Services: cost containment issues

The INSURE Project on Lifecycle Preventive Health Services (LPHS) is a three-year feasibility study to determine whether preventive health services can be implemented in the primary medical care setting as a covered health insurance benefit and what the short-term behavioral effects will be on physicians and their patients. Thus far, the negotiated reasonable and customary fees that have been paid are lower than anticipated. Patients have expressed a willingness to pay extra for preventive care insurance coverage if it were available. The positive reactions of providers and consumers and the reasonable cost of LPHS may prove to be more crucial than broader cost containment issues in determining the extent of health insurance coverage for preventive care in the future.