Reimbursement
Cigna Corp. announced its net earnings fell to $57 million or 20 cents per share in the first quarter 2013 down from $371 million or $1.28 per share last year, largely the result of a previously announced $507 million charge from its Febraury reinsurance deal with Berkshire Hathaway.
Patient Privacy Rights appointed Adrian Gropper, MD as its first chief technology officer. Gropper is an expert in the regulated medical device field, an experienced medical informatics executive, and he has a long record of contributing to the development of state and national health information standards, according to a PPR news release.
West Virginia is the latest state deciding to expand Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act, opening the state-federal insurance program to an additional 91,500 low-income residents, while also expanding managed care.
Collaborations between primary care and behavioral health providers are not new but the leaders of two such organizations believe their newly formed joint venture is a winning formula.
Healthcare costs in Vermont grew by a modest 1.5 percent in 2011 -- a positive sign, say members of the Green Mountain Care Board, but not cause for celebration, especially considering other recent findings of hospital cost-shifting from public-payers to commercial health plans.
As insurance exchanges, subsidies for low-income earners and a raft of health and insurance regulations get underway, the U.S. could learn from similar reforms and programs enacted in Switzerland and the Netherlands -- even as those countries still have problems to sort out, a Health Affairs study suggests.
The Center for Technology and Aging has launched an online mHealth Toolkit that officials say offers key resources to organizations that want to develop a best-in-class mHealth program for chronic disease management.
The Department of Health and Human Services has released an enhanced National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in Health and Health Care -- a blueprint meant to help organizations improve healthcare quality in serving diverse communities in the U.S.
Aetna posted first quarter 2013 earnings of $495 million or $1.50 per share -- a 12 percent year over year increase -- as membership continues to grow and is expected to reach 18.4 million by year's end.
Vermont health officials have a challenging task explaining to consumers the details and benefits of the state health insurance exchange without being able to say much about how insurance and healthcare will or will not change in 2017, when Governor wants to transition to a single payer system.