Healthcare Finance Staff
Federal health officials and state exchange leaders may be pleased with enrollment and plan choices in many places, but long-term financing is a puzzle yet to be solved.
Provider network controversies from the first Affordable Care Act enrollment are coming back to bite two large Blues in the second open enrollment, while raising questions about responsibility for consumer confusion.
California's experiment aimed at moving almost 500,000 low-income seniors and disabled people automatically into managed care has been rife with problems in its first six months, leading to widespread confusion, frustration and resistance.
The proliferation and variety of accountable care designs in commercial insurance, Medicare Advantage and managed Medicaid highlight the need predict the appropriate cost of care, ensure access to needed services and raise quality. But how can value be measured?
Want to pay your health plan premiums while picking up medications, buying some batteries (or maybe a piece of chocolate) and getting a free cholesterol screening? Humana is betting that retail convenience will support its individual membership business.
A new payer-led patient information exchange in California is getting ready to hit the ground running.
Not only are employers prone to switching their health plans, but more are ending their group health benefits altogether, a sign of the growing importance of the individual market.
One of the greatest concerns among patient advocates, regulators and insurers alike is that buying and using a health plan may be too complex a task for some consumers. One state exchange is hoping it found a scalable solution.
Americans consume a staggering amount of the opioid painkiller hydrocodone, about 99 percent of the world's supply. In October, after 10 years of debate the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) reclassified medications like Vicodin, and products that combine hydrocodone with other drugs, as Schedule II controlled substances.
Americans working to improve their eating and activity habits often fail, and not for lack of investment by employers, insurers and wellness vendors. Despite, or perhaps because of those challenges, Cigna is taking another crack at the problem.