Kaiser Health News
UnitedHealthCare will expand its high-profile test of whether bundled payments for chemotherapy can help slow rising cancer treatment costs, part of a growing effort by insurers to find new ways to pay for care.
Premiums will increase an average of 7.5 percent for the second-lowest-cost silver insurance plan to be offered next year in the 37 states where the federal government operates health marketplaces, according to an analysis by the Department of Health and Human Services.
Health officials across the country face a vexing quandary - how do you help the sickest and neediest patients get healthier and prevent their costly visits to emergency rooms?
Under the health law, health plans are required to cover preventive services that are recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a nonpartisan group of medical experts, without charging consumers anything out of pocket.
A key strategy for Medicare is encouraging doctors, hospitals and other health care providers to form accountable care organizations (ACOs) to coordinate beneficiaries' care and provide services more efficiently.
The governor and state lawmakers are using a mixture of healthcare models to put the major players -- doctors, hospitals and insurers -- all on the hook to keep rising costs in check.
A jump in the number of new expensive drugs hitting the market -- along with moves by drugmakers like Turing to raise the price on older and generic drugs -- have helped make prescription drugs the fastest-growing segment of the nation's health care tab.
Four companies running urgent care centers in New York have agreed to disclose more fully which insurance plans they accept, following an inquiry by the state's attorney general that found unclear or incomplete information on their websites that could result in larger-than-expected bills for consumers.
Medicaid spending soared nearly 14 percent last year--its biggest annual increase in at least two decades--as a result of millions of newly eligible low-income enrollees signing up under the Affordable Care Act, according to a report released Thursday by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Opponents of the tax fear that more out-of-pocket costs for consumers will add to the difficulty many Americans already have paying their medical bills, now that high-deductible health plans are commonplace.