Reimbursement

Family premium costs for employer-sponsored health insurance have risen 62 percent between 2003 and 2011, according to an analysis by the Commonwealth Fund.

Consumer-directed health plans with high deductibles typically exempt recommended preventive care such as annual physicals or screening tests from the plan's deductible or require only a small copay as a way to ease financial barriers and encourage patients to seek care. However, many patients don't understand their plan benefits for preventative office care and tend to avoid visits altogether.

In what's been billed as one of the first commercial accountable care programs in Florida, Naples, Fla.-based NCH Healthcare System will team up with the state's Blue Cross and Blue Shield Company to participate in the Florida Blue Accountable Care Program.

HealthEdge, which develops software for payers, has acquired Click4Care, a firm that specializes in care management technology for health insurers. 

Use of prepayment edits saved Medicare at least $1.76 billion in fiscal year 2010, but a new study by the Government Accountability Office found that savings could have been greater had the edits been more widely used.

A diverse group of more than 350 healthcare, patient, veterans and business organizations on Tuesday urged Congressional leaders to reject any proposal to turn the Medicare Part D plan into one that resembles the rebates structure of Medicaid drug programs.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of the Inspector General (OIG) is investigating Minnesota's Medicaid managed care payment rates to HMOs between 2008 and 2009.

Acting CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner and other CMS officials announced on Monday that states which embark on a partial expansion of their Medicaid systems would not qualify for the full 100 percent funding under the Affordable Care Act's Medcaid expansion provision.

In this week's HIX Digest: Vetoes and defaults, Republicans question United tech acquisition, state of EHBs and the open source option.

As long as Paul Krugman continues to write about health care -- a subject about which he is woefully ignorant -- we will never run out of fodder for posts at John Goodman's Health Policy Blog. Just fact checking Krugman's errors and omissions is almost a full-time job.