Reimbursement

Consumer driven health plans continued their growth in the past year, though their growth was at a slower rate than in the past, according to preliminary results from the 2011 UBA Health Plan Survey conducted by United Business Advisors.

WellPoint announced today it has completed its acquisition of CareMore Health Group, a provider of Medicare Advantage plans and Special Needs Plans designed for the chronically ill in select California, Nevada and Arizona markets.

Much of the focus in Washington has been on fixing Social Security's retirement system, but the disability system is in much worse shape. The trust fund that supports disability benefits will run out of money by 2017, according to new estimates.

Ignoring months of protests, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced Friday the next steps for an expansion of a competitive bidding program designed to help lower costs for quality durable medical equipment, prosthetics, orthotics and supplies.

Quality improvements and lower costs have been touted as benefits of hospital-physician alignment, but such results are not guaranteed says a briefing released by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC), a nonpartisan health policy research organization.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will use the cloud computing services of Terremark Federal Group Inc., of Herndon, Va., to support its Healthcare.gov plan finder and the system demands of the health insurance exchange program being created in the 50 states.

Ever since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) was passed, opponents have looked for ways to overturn it in the court of law and the court of public opinion. They've had reasonable success in both arenas, using opposition to the individual mandate to buy health insurance as Exhibit A.

Last month's decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta that struck down the individual insurance mandate has finally put the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on course for what has been inevitable from the beginning: a date with the justices of the United States Supreme Court.

Mike Fogarty, CEO of the Oklahoma Health Care Authority (OKHCA) says, with a new electronic application system in place, Oklahoma is ready for the onslaught of Medicaid enrollment that is expected in 2014.

Overall U.S. healthcare prices increased in July 2011, rising 0.4 percent, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.