HealthPartners has educated hospital, co-op and community leaders about the steps necessary to set up a prepaid system, and is working with them to develop a benefit structure to fit members' contributions. Eventually, it would like to see the co-ops use some of the money collected to hire a public health nurse to help deliver preventive care and other services. When I return from Uganda, I find myself wanting to step back from the complexities of existing health care systems and look at the basic needs of a good working relationship with providers and how we can work together. We've learned that you can't take anything we've done and force it into an international setting. And nothing we've learned overseas can be imposed upon the states and be expected to work.
Health care is a local, personal issue that requires customization.
United works in countries where it can find a local partner to help it understand market expectations. We aren't able to figure out what the Portuguese need by sitting in Minnesota. We basically say, 'Here are the tools. Practice, don't preach HealthPartners' Aebischer agrees that a managed care company must understand and appreciate local needs if it is to succeed. Once the Ugandan co-op and hospital leaders understood prepayment systems, says Aebischer, they began, on their own, to identify some preventive needs that fit the prepayment model.