Not OP, but I think the underlying meaning is that the focus on profit is primary. As in when it aligns with better patient outcomes it’s going to happen and that’s great.

But probably there are a ton of scenarios where profit is anti-aligned with patient outcomes and the decisions are made still to maximize profit.

I can believe that. Not because people are wicked, but collective behaviors behind the system favoring profits more than patient outcomes. The system is extremely complex and even small biases somewhere deep can possibly have a big swing in the outcomes.

Even so, they are insurers. They focus on profit by cutting costs or increasing revenue. Annual checkups must be believed to do one of those things.

> Not OP, but I think the underlying meaning is that the focus on profit is primary. As in when it aligns with better patient outcomes it’s going to happen and that’s great.

> But probably there are a ton of scenarios where profit is anti-aligned with patient outcomes and the decisions are made still to maximize profit.

It may align in their financial interests for most of these required preventive services[0] but there are some that very obviously don't like lung cancer (it would be cheaper to let smokers die quickly than to put them on immunotherapy + SBRT) and others with weak evidence, I doubt a good cost-benefit analysis has been performed for weight counseling.

Point being is that insurers are not the final say in a lot of this, the ACA did add a lot of requirements for them. But I concede there are times they don't, OP is just being overly harsh here and "improving health outcomes" isn't an insurance-specific PR line it has been used in academia and the government for a while now, even in public health systems.

[0] https://www.healthcare.gov/preventive-care-adults/

But that’s how the system is supposed to work! The goal of the insurance company is to reduce costs. The govt and the healthcare system are the parts of the system that advocate for the patient.