Chris Anderson
Cigna Corp. today reported its 2012 fourth quarter profits jumped 49 percent compared to 2011, fueled, in part, by its late January 2012 acquisition of Medicare Advantage and Medicare Part D insurer HealthSpring.
An online clinic launched in 2010 by non-profit HMO HealthPartners for the diagnosis and treatment of 40 simple medical conditions showed an average savings of $88 per episode over care in a traditional setting, providing hope for the future of online medical care.
For the third time since it first introduced its plans to require women's preventive health services including coverage for contraception under employer-sponsored health plans, the Department of Health and Human Services on Friday announced a modified set of proposed rules aimed at allaying the objections of religious organizations to the mandate.
On Thursday, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced it had selected more than 500 healthcare organizations to participate in its Bundled Payment for Care Improvement initiative, a program to test how bundling payments for episodes of care can improve care coordination and lower overall Medicare expenditures.
With the insurance and healthcare landscape in this country changing on almost a monthly basis, payer software vendor HealthEdge has begun conducting regular surveys of insurers as a means to take the pulse of a market at any given time. The surveys, conducted currently at six-month intervals, provide a snapshot of the industry. Ray Desrochers, executive vice president of sales and marketing at HealthEdge recently talked to Healthcare Finance News Senior Editor Chris Anderson about some of the findings of the most recent survey.
When Congress passed the early morning fiscal cliff compromise there was largely relief across the country. Unfortunately, when it comes to brinksmanship politics, the fine print can get a bit messy and there is often collateral damage and the healthcare sector took a couple of those hits.
Aetna reported fourth quarter 2012 earnings today that were 49 percent lower than 2011, as the nation's third largest insurer took one-time charges related to the settlement of a $120 million reimbursement lawsuit announced last month.
Better Health, a regional health improvement collaborative in northeast Ohio reported that hospitalizations for cardiovascular conditions addressed by its programs fell by 10.7 percent in 2011, building on declines in 2009 and 2010. According to Better Health this is first time a decline in avoidable hospitalizations has been reported as a result of a regional health collaborative's efforts.
A bipartisan bill introduced by representatives D. Phillip Roe, MD, (R-Tenn.) and Allyson Schwartz (D-Pa.) and with the support of numerous provider groups, seeks for a second time to repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB).
A study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that having Quality Improvement Organizations (QIOs) to improve care transitions decreased hospitalizations and re-hospitalizations of Medicare beneficiaries by nearly 6 percent over two years.