Month: September 2021
A federal judge on Monday ordered that all employees entering California prisons be vaccinated or have a religious or medical exemption, as he tries to head off another coronavirus outbreak like the one that killed 28 inmates and a correctional officer at San Quentin State Prison last year. Inmates who want in-person visits or who ...
In the past 18 months, the healthcare industry has been defined by a time of sustained innovation and continuing technology investment. Health plans recognize the opportunity to collaborate with providers to deliver more patient-centric care and remove cost from the system. As government regulations and market forces converge around these initiatives, now is the time ...
The American Dental Association is mobilizing its 162,000 members to fight a proposal to include dental coverage for all Medicare recipients, opposition that could prove pivotal as Democrats look to make cuts in their $3.5 trillion domestic policy agenda. Giving dental, vision and hearing benefits to the 60 million older and disabled Americans covered by Medicare will provide ...
Out-of-pocket spending for hearing and dental care far outpaced spending for vision care among Medicare beneficiaries, a new analysis found. The analysis, released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation, examines out-of-pocket spending in 2018 and 2019 on traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage on the three benefits. It comes as Congress is contemplating adding the three benefits ...
Hospitals’ August financials bowed under the weight of the COVID-19 delta variant, albeit not nearly to the extent they did during the widespread disruption of 2020, per Kaufman Hall. According to the group’s latest monthly report on industrywide performance, upticks in new COVID-19 cases and hospital admissions maintained pressure on hospitals’ bottom lines. By most ...
As schools and businesses weigh their options for tracking COVID-19 cases, UnitedHealth Group’s researchers have developed an online calculator tool these organizations can use to game out potential testing programs. The free tool allows users to simulate the financial cost as well as the likely number of false positives for several different testing options and frequencies. For ...
Teachers are furious and frustrated with their health insurance for not paying up. Teachers Health Trust (THT Health) covers around 18,000 teachers and their dependents
UnitedHealthcare is making Apple Fitness+ available to millions of members at no cost, the insurer announced Thursday. Beginning Nov. 1, members in fully insured plans who already own an Apple Watch will be able to sign up for a yearlong Apple Fitness+ subscription for free. This covers about 3 million members across most states, UnitedHealthcare said. Self-funded ...
Among the many initiatives accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic are efforts to combat inequities in the U.S. healthcare system that have persisted for years but were brought into stark relief when the coronavirus reached the country’s shores. As a result, payers are implementing new programs to try and improve member health beyond the traditional care ...
Peter Lee, who has steered California’s Affordable Care Act marketplace since late 2011 and helped mold it into a model of what the federal health care law could achieve, announced Thursday he will leave his post in March.