Blue Cross Blue Shield and Hackensack to Pilot VeriChip
August 17th, 2006 | Published in Company Profiles, Patient Safety
Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey and Hackensack University Medical Center are recruiting volunteers with chronic conditions to get “chipped” with VeriChip's implantable RFID chip.
In the two-year trial, the insurance company will pay about $200 for
the chips to be implanted, plus $80 a month for a subscription fee,
according to reports in the RFID Journal.
Horizon will then assess whether the devices lower health care
costs by reducing duplicate lab tests, drug interactions or
misdiagnoses.
Horizon will invite patients with conditions like diabetes and
heart disease to participate and hopes to enroll about 300 volunteers.
[…]
VeriChip has given several New Jersey hospitals—Beth Israel, Clara
Maass, Columbus, Hackensack, Kimball, Newark, Ocean and PBI
Regional—equipment to read the chips and access the company's database.
Interesting. This is only the second press that I've seen that describes a rationale for chipping - the first was Alzheimer's patients, and now chronic disease. Also interesting is that the database that links the chip's 16-digit identifying number with a specific patient apparently resides on VeriChip's servers (hence the $80 per month subscription).
It seems that no story about VeriChip is complete without the obligatory references to the potential loss of privacy or signs of the apocalypse, and eWeek doesn't disappoint. There's even mention of anti-RFID site Spychips.
Pictured right is the sign of the beast implantable chip from VeriChip.
UPDATE: Oops, I guess the above is just additional info to this post.
0 comments ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.
Leave a Comment