Annual Employer Reporting Requirements and Upcoming Changes: Medicare Part D Notices Explained

Employers offering prescription drug benefits to their employees have an important annual duty: by October 14th each year, they must notify Medicare-eligible employees and their Medicare-eligible dependents whether their plan’s drug coverage is "creditable" or "non-creditable" as compared to a standard Medicare Part D drug plan.

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Nevada Division of Insurance Seeking Public Comment on Essential Health Benefit Changes

The Nevada Division of Insurance (NVDOI) is seeking public input on revisions to Nevada’s essential health benefits (EHB) plan. Nevada’s EHB plan is the benchmark set of health care services that is required for all individual and small group health insurance plans. The current EHB plan is Health Plan of Nevada’s HPN Solutions HMO Platinum ...

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Surprise Medical Bill Law Has Been Good For Providers

The federal process for resolving billing disputes for out-of-network care has to date yielded payouts well above what Medicare and most in-network private insurers would pay providers, according to a new Brookings Institution analysis provided first to Axios. Why it matters: That could lead to downstream effects like higher premiums — quite the opposite of what Congress intended ...

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How Your In-Network Health Coverage Can Vanish Before You Know It

Sarah Feldman, 35, received the first ominous letters from Mount Sinai Medical last November. The New York hospital system warned it was having trouble negotiating a pricing agreement with UnitedHealthcare, which includes Oxford Health Plans, Feldman’s insurer. “We are working in good faith with Oxford to reach a new fair agreement,” the letter said, continuing ...

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What Makes People Happy? California Lawmakers Want To Find Out

California Assemblyman Anthony Rendon likes to spend his spare time away from the Capitol in Sacramento with his 4-year-old daughter back home near Los Angeles. Last weekend, he took her ice skating and to an indoor playground, then let her get a donut after she agreed to ride her scooter on the way there. “Those ...

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Senators Press HHS Secretary On Change HealthCare Cyberattack Fallout

Senators want answers from the Biden administration on the recent cyberattack that froze millions of hospital and physician insurance claims, and concrete plans to prevent the next disruptive attack on health care. During a hearing Thursday, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) pressed Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra to institute cybersecurity requirements for both ...

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UnitedHealth Says Advanced Over $2 Billion In Payments To Providers

UnitedHealth Group said on Monday it has advanced payments of over $2 billion so far to provide assistance to healthcare providers, financially affected following a cybersecurity attack on its technology unit, Change Healthcare. The company said it will start releasing its medical claims software on Monday and it will become available to “thousands of customers” ...

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AHIP, HHS Diverge On Relaxing Prior Authorizations After Change Attack

Suspending prior authorization requirements as providers continue to to face disruptions from the Change Healthcare hack could do more harm than good, according to AHIP. “Broad exemptions in prior authorization at a time of advanced payments could expose patients and employers to fraud, waste and unnecessary costs,” AHIP President and CEO Mike Tuffin said in ...

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Biden Has Shelved The Age Issue – For Now

Not even presidents can reverse time, so there’s only so much Joe Biden can do to defuse one of his top general election liabilities – his advanced age. But Biden, 81, appears to be in far better shape on this question than he was a week ago – and not just because he charged past the magic ...

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Trump Cleans Up Remarks About ‘Cutting’ Social Security And Medicare

Former President Trump in a new interview sought to clarify comments from earlier in the week in which he said there are ways to go about “cutting” entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare. “I will never do anything that will jeopardize or hurt Social Security or Medicare,” Trump told Breitbart News on Wednesday. “We’ll have ...

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