Reimbursement
Optum Labs, the research center founded by UnitedHealth and Mayo Clinic, has added seven new health organizations, which will join in on data mining research to find innovative ways to improve quality and reduce costs.
Researchers have found that a value-based insurance design test increased medication adherence, but it failed to be cost neutral, suggesting that the business case for VBID may be more convincing over several years or with higher risk patients.
Amid Medicaid expansion and a coming state capitated payment system, a Chicago non-profit health plan created by providers two decades ago is expanding its network and eying growth for the next decade.
Mid-size businesses with 50 to 99 employees will have another year – until 2016 – to provide health insurance to their full-time workers, the second delay associated with the employer mandate by the Obama Administration.
Bernard Tyson, Kaiser Permanente's new CEO and chairman, came to his new roles at the start of what most say will be a challenging year as healthcare reform gears up.
Consumer advocacy groups are taking on California's medical establishment, trying to expand the power of rate review in a ballot initiative that's already drawing a lot of political money.
Lawmakers took another step toward repealing the reviled sustainable growth rate formula that sets physician payment in the Medicare program, but they still haven't figured out how to pay for it.
Cigna's 2013 report ended a week full of news about slipping Medicare Advantage profits, but the company is still betting on U.S. seniors while also looking abroad.
Federal regulators are trying to set expectations and a tentative schedule for public exchange plans in 2015; they're also proposing a new approach to network adequacy and essential community providers, after complaints from consumers and providers in a few markets.
Kaiser Permanente and the Veterans Health Administration, which are providers and health plans, are partnering to study and share best practices in connected health and virtual care.