Month: June 2023
SB 770, a bill advancing Single Payer in California passed off the Senate Floor last week and is now heading to the Assembly Health Committee.
The Texas conservatives challenging Obamacare’s preventive care mandate have reached a tentative compromise with the Justice Department that preserves free coverage for a range of services — from syphilis tests to depression screenings.
Researchers say they may be able to explain how light drinking benefits the heart, and its main effect doesn’t stem from changes in the blood – as scientists once thought – but from its actions in the brain. But because alcohol also raises the risk of cancer at any amount, however, researchers say they aren’t ...
There’s an old proverb—everything old is new again. That is certainly true for healthcare policy. Last month, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., introduced the Medicare for All Act of 2023, the single-payer health plan the Vermont socialist has been pushing for years. President Biden will surely dust off his old proposal for a public option whenever he launches ...
Millions of Americans in the past few years have run into this experience: filing a health care insurance claim that once might have been paid immediately but instead is just as quickly denied. If the experience and the insurer’s explanation often seem arbitrary and absurd, that might be because companies appear increasingly likely to employ ...
The letters from the insurance company arrived in recent weeks, bearing a warning to health care providers who prescribe Ozempic, a diabetes drug that has gained popularity as a weight-loss treatment. “The Special Investigations Unit has completed a comprehensive review of your prescription and professional claims,” said one letter to a Missouri doctor from insurer ...
Employers commonly ask brokers if they can offer a cash payment to an employee in lieu of paying for that employee’s benefits. This option is permitted, and it is referred to as a “cash in lieu of benefits” option (or a “pay in lieu of benefits” option). However, there are compliance aspects brokers need to ...
The Biden administration on Thursday announced a 10-year experiment aimed at improving the way Medicare and Medicaid pay for primary care. Why it matters: The effort, dubbed the Making Care Primary Model, will ease safety-net and independent primary care providers — including federally qualified health centers — into getting paid for the value of services they provide, rather than the volume. Remember: The ...
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has released a 43-drug list of the Medicare Part B prescription treatments that must repay the program for raising prices above the rate of inflation. The second quarterly list takes effect in July and is an expansion over the 20 price-capped drugs from April through June. According ...
Consolidation has been the norm across healthcare for some time, and for those in the industry that want to stay independent, watching their peers unite can be intimidating. Chris Thomas is the president and CEO of Community Hospital, an independent hospital located in Grand Junction, Colorado. He told a key Senate panel on Thursday that ...