Recent news suggests that the United States Preventative Service Task Force will release new guidelines stating that healthy men should no longer receive a P.S.A. blood test to screen for prostate cancer in the general population.
The United States Preventive Services Task Force is an independent panel of experts in prevention and primary care appointed by the Department of Health and Human Services to review cost effective clinical preventive health care services.

ExamOne is currently reviewing the USPSTF recommendation and the medical research  behind their decision in regards to the current insurance medicine utility of the PSA test in the life insurance population.

We will keep you informed as we complete our review. If you have any questions, please contact your Strategic Account Executive.

Join us Thursday, September 22, for tips on getting the most out of your life insurance leads. During this free, one-hour session you will learn how internet leads are generated, review best practices for working leads including introductions, nurturing and following up on your leads and receive tips for getting granular with your demographics.

Webcast Information:

Date: Thursday, September 22, 2011
Time: 2 p.m. Eastern Time
Duration: 1 hour
Presenters:
Eric Hazen, CEO of Trueblue Interactive
Joseph Grant, Director, Producer Sales, ExamOne

AARP published an article about health care jobs for retirees. This profile of Denise Teifel, a retiree working as an insurance examiner for ExamOne in Oregon, appears on AARP’s website on the “Working After Retirement” page.

Click Here for Article.

ExamOne has partnered with TrueBlue to sell Exclusive Leads and Exclusive Call-Verified Leads to insurance agents. The leads marketplace is extremely competitive, but we will market through our field-based representatives. In addition, most companies sell Shared Leads. Ours are Exclusive, and agents can also choose Exclusive Leads that have been Call-Verified.

ExamOne is dedicated to Applicants First and Policies Fast. It is our goal with the Leads to Close product to help agents get quality Exclusive Leads in their territories. For more information www.LeadstoClose.com.

Copyright © 2011 Association of Home Office Underwriters

Insurance underwriters nationwide will gather at The 10^th Annual Conference of the AHOU May 1-4, 2011, to gain insights about what is affecting the insurance industry as well as knowledge about underwriting trends.  In the midst of the social events hosted by AHOU as well as ExamOne, the workshops and seminars stand to aid the professional development of underwriters in many respects.

As society changes, the nature of underwriting changes.  Sessions at the AHOU meeting take advances in health care, an aging population, insurance operations, and a more globalized society into account.  Also, the emergence of stranger owned life insurance (STOLI) has changed some of the dynamics of insurance underwriting, in which the owner of an insurance policy has a lack of an insurable interest in the person covered by the insurance and is speculating on that person’s mortality.  Several of the sessions examine diabetes ratings, heart function, obesity, Alzheimer’s research and dementia, risk assessment and underwriting for the elderly.

ExamOne’s own Betsy Sears, executive vice president, will give an interactive presentation titled “Seeing Through the Smoke: Common Myths of the Laboratory.”  The presentation will use real-life calls from underwriters, agents and applicants to dispel myths associated with lab testing, such as whether second-hand smoke shows up in non-smokers results or whether Novocain causes a false positive for cocaine.

We look forward to a productive conference during the day and hope the conference has AHOU members coming back with new knowledge to apply in their underwriting departments.

Insurers dread cryptic risk.  Even the word “cryptic” conjures the images of an old grave or lost symbols that cannot be translated in today’s language.  In the insurance sense, it pertains to risks that are not easily detected.

Those undetected risks can dearly cost insurance companies.  Insurers can expect accidents to happen and claims to be paid fairly early during a policy.  But what about underlying medical conditions that are not properly rated?

ExamOne recently hosted 65 insurance industry representatives to learn more about Risk IQ and how this tool can improve the accuracy of risk assessment, while shortening underwriting time.  Using case studies for different insurance applicants, Risk IQ showed instances where different data highlighted cryptic risk.  On the other hand, it showed some instances where people should have received coverage or a better rating – “the hidden healthy.”

As assessed by Risk IQ, more than 30 percent of applicants currently excluded from preferred pools actually present lower mortality risks than the majority of preferred-qualified individuals.  Conversely, more than 25 percent of preferred applicants actually exhibit higher mortality risk than most non-preferred individuals.

The March 2011 edition of On The Risk: The Journal of the Academy of Life Underwriting (subscription required) published research that examines the approach that Risk IQ uses in gauging mortality risk.

On the Risk Magazine March 2011

A Comprehensive Multivariate Approach to the Stratification of Applicant-Level All-Cause Mortality Risk

This article was posted with the permission of ON THE RISK, Journal of the Academy of Life Underwriting (www.ontherisk.com)

Great morning !!  I am very excited in starting my new role as Medical Director of ExamOne.   My goal is to serve the current and future needs of our  insurer clients and to assure the most positive applicant experience in the review process.

I look forward to utilizing my experiences in the health insurance; worker’s compensation; employee benefit and health outcomes fields to support and develop  solutions that enhance the life insurance underwriting process.

I am a tremendous advocate for the holistic approach to life and health – focusing on physical, mental and spiritual well—being.   Life insurance is an important part of this holistic approach since it protects the well—being of our greatest asset – our loved ones !

Have a tremendous day !!!

Jim

Many clients are currently including A1c as part of a screening blood profile, but those that aren’t may be leaving themselves open to anti-selection. Multiple internal A1c pilots have shown that anywhere from 8-33% of applicants with normal serum glucose, fructosamine, and urine glucose will have A1c > 6%.

The American Diabetes Association recently published new guidelines for diagnosing and treating Diabetes as a supplement to the January issue of Diabetes Care (http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/33/Supplement_1). One of the biggest changes was the recommendation that A1c now be used to diagnose pre-diabetes and diabetes. Studies have shown that approximately 25% of type 2 diabetics do not know that they have the disease. And more efforts need to be made to screen for the disease. There are numerous advantages to using A1c to perform screening.  A1C is a better index of glycemic exposure than blood glucose, is at least as good at predicting risk of long-term complications, has similar if not better standardization, and is better in its lack of day to day variability. The new ADA guidelines suggest who should be tested for diabetes, and with the renewed emphasis on preventative medicine they will likely be followed by most primary care physicians. The guidelines suggestion on who should be tested is as follows:

“Criteria for testing for diabetes in asymptomatic adult individuals“

1. Testing should be considered in all adults who are overweight (BMI _25 kg/m2*) and have additional risk factors:
   • physical inactivity
   • first-degree relative with diabetes
   • members of a high-risk ethnic population (e.g., African American, Latino, Native American, Asian American, Pacific Islander)
   • women who delivered a baby weighing _9 lb or were diagnosed with GDM
   • hypertension (_140/90 mmHg or on therapy for hypertension)
   • HDL cholesterol level _35 mg/dl (0.90 mmol/l) and/or a triglyceride level _250 mg/dl (2.82 mmol/l)
   • women with polycystic ovary syndrome
   • A1C _5.7%, IGT, or IFG on previous testing
   • other clinical conditions associated with insulin resistance (e.g., severe obesity,acanthosis nigricans)
   • history of CVD
2. In the absence of the above criteria, testing diabetes should begin at age 45 years
3. If results are normal, testing should be repeated at least at 3-year intervals, with consideration of more frequent testing depending on initial results and risk status.” ⁽¹⁾ The new guidelines also state that: “Individuals with an A1C of 5.7–6.4% should be informed of their increased risk for diabetes as well as cardiovascular disease and counseled about effective strategies, such as weight loss and physical activity, to lower their risks. As with glucose measurements, the continuum of risk is curvilinear, so that as A1C rises, the risk of diabetes rises disproportionately. Accordingly, interventions should be most intensive and follow-up should be particularly vigilant for those with A1C levels above 6.0%, who should be considered to be at very high risk.” ⁽²⁾ One prospective study showed that 88% or those with A1c 5.7-6.4% will develop diabetes within 6 years without weight loss or exercise programs. Regarding the diagnosis of diabetes, the guidelines state: “A1C assays are now highly standardized so that their results can be uniformly applied both temporally and across populations. In their recent report, an International Expert Committee, after an extensive review of both established and emerging epidemiological evidence, recommended the use of the A1C test to diagnose diabetes, with a threshold of _6.5%, and ADA affirms this decision. The diagnostic A1C cut point of 6.5% is associated with an inflection point for retinopathy prevalence…” ⁽²⁾ These new ADA guidelines will likely result in more individuals being aware of their A1c value, and if it is elevated, they might be in a position to anti-select against companies who are not testing.

References:

1. Diabetes Care January 2010 33:S11-S61
2. Diabetes Care January 2010 33:S62-S69