Mary Mosquera

Healthcare industry executives around the world understand the need to collaborate but lack of trust among the sectors and unaligned incentives for stakeholders create hurdles.

Wellpoint said its solid financial results were due to taming medical cost increases in its employer-based business and benefiting from the Medicaid operations in its recent Amerigroup transaction.

The number of accountable care organizations is rapidly increasing among private payers and with it some best practices are emerging as the new models significantly alter payer-provider relationships.

Some of the most challenging aspects for payers to prepare for operating on the exchanges have to with the basics, such as products, rates and service models.

The seemingly millions of tasks for payers to be ready for the roll out of health insurance exchanges should be steadily shrinking as October swiftly approaches, but there is still much to do, including looking to the future.

A bipartisan draft bill proposes a solution to the troublesome SGR formula but doesn't offer a way to pay for it and leaves some in the industry "disappointed."

Healthcare employers reported in the latest national CareerBuilder survey that full-time, permanent hiring in the second half of 2013 will gradually improve over 2012 and temporary and contract hiring is expected to jump 15 percentage points over last year.

More than half of private companies are finding themselves ahead of the government's employer insurance requirements now that the Treasury Department has delayed compliance until 2015.

Insurer WellPoint will pay a $1.7 million fine to the federal government to settle potential HIPAA violations, announced the Health and Human Services Department said late Thursday.

Generic pharmaceuticals that were launched ahead of patent expiration due to patent settlements helped the U.S. health system save $25.5 billion from 2005 to 2012, according to an analysis released Monday by the Generic Pharmaceutical Association.