Healthcare Finance Staff
With the Affordable Care Act entering the home stretch of implementation, U.S. Senators are still trying to understand the costs and benefits of market reforms, while diagnosing problems in the greater healthcare system.
Baptist Health Madisonville, in Madisonville, Ky., announced Thursday that it has begun work with TransforMED, a Patient-Centered Medical Home transformation program, to improve primary healthcare for its patients in western Kentucky.
Two of the nation's leading forces in health insurance -- UnitedHealthcare and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association -- will face off Thursday before a congressional subcommittee in a battle for control of the $47 billion program that covers 8 million federal employees, retirees and their families.
The former head of Massachusetts' health insurance exchange thinks that advertising and outreach will make or break the enrollment success of federal and state-based HIXs.
Marilyn Tavenner, acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, received accolades from both sides of the aisle at a hearing on Tuesday to consider her nomination to head CMS. Senate Finance Committee leaders indicated a decision would come soon.
Healthcare insurer UnitedHealth Group has awarded On Lok Lifeways a $897,240 grant to help strengthen its health information technology system and delivery of care to San Francisco Bay area seniors through electronic medical records initiatives. The grant is part of $5.2 million UnitedHealthcare awarded to nine healthcare organizations to support nonprofit clinics, hospitals and healthcare organizations that improve healthcare services for underserved communities across California.
The Senate Finance Committee will hold a hearing Tuesday, beginning at 10 a.m., to consider President Barack Obama's nomination of Marilyn B. Tavenner for administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
States should start tracking self-funding and stop-loss trends, as some self-funding employers may be exposing themselves to high financial and legal risk, a new report from the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute and the Urban Institute suggests.
Regulators in some states are trying to prevent insurers from getting around the health law by extending potentially cheaper, but more limited policies for another year, but other states are giving the firms leeway.
Over the next 10 years health reform will impose upon us about $1 trillion in new taxes and it will take another $716 billion out of Medicare, imperiling access to care for the elderly and the disabled according to Medicare's Office of the Actuaries. It will impose a mandate to buy health insurance on most people and fine us if we don't comply. It will compel all but the smallest employers to provide insurance to their employees and fine them if they don't.