Author: Scott Welch
“This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.” Two years ago, California hit a milestone decades in the making: Nearly every person in the state qualified for health insurance, regardless of immigration status and income, pushing the state’s insured rate to a record 95%. Now that progress is unravelling. Facing budget ...
Employer health plans that pay out-of-network doctors or hospitals less than the providers billed now have to tell the providers exactly what plan is paying the bill. A plan that “downcodes” a claim must also give the provider some information about why it downcoded the claim. The new claim payment message requirements took effect last ...
A House Republican has introduced a new, expanded version of his Great American Healthcare proposal. Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., filed a Great American Healthcare Act bill earlier this week. The bill is similar to the Great American Healthcare Plan bill that Burlison introduced in April. Like the earlier bill, the new Great American Healthcare bill ...
Medi-Cal cuts will strain hospitals already operating at a loss. The fallout: fewer services and higher costs for the privately insured too.
Aetna is happy with its employer plan business, but is not happy with the No Surprises Act independent dispute resolution system. Steven Nelson, the president of the CVS Health subsidiary, talked about the business today, during a conference call CVS held to go over results for the second quarter with securities analysts. In some recent ...
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday to drastically change the childhood vaccine schedule by recommending shots be administered in separate visits to the doctor’s office. The executive order acts on Trump’s long-held belief that splitting up routine childhood vaccinations across multiple visits lessens the risk of acquiring autism. Scientists have found no credible risk ...
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) blasted an executive order President Trump signed Monday that splits the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) shot across three separate visits. “I’m a doctor. This executive order is wrong. The President does not have the expertise to make these changes. Vaccines are overwhelmingly safe. Vaccines are effective. Vaccines DO NOT cause autism,” Cassidy wrote on social platform X shortly ...
On July 16, CMS published a significant Request for Information (RFI) to assess potential reforms to overhaul the American Medical Association’s (AMA’s) Current Procedural Terminology® (CPT®) coding system. The RFI was included in the Calendar Year (CY) 2027 Physician Fee Schedule Proposed Rule (CMS-1848-P). Concerns about Conflicts, Patient Care, and Innovation The RFI cites “longstanding concerns” ...
“This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.” In the matter of a few clicks and keystrokes, anyone can find themselves deep in conversation with “Psychologist,” a chatbot character that describes itself as an expert in “empathy” and “active listening.” It responds to messages of anxiety and sadness with reassurance. It ...
Coffee drinkers may not have to feel guilty about reaching for another cup. A new scientific statement from the American Heart Association says that consuming up to 400 milligrams of caffeine a day — the equivalent of about five 8-ounce cups of black coffee — is generally safe for most healthy adults and may even be ...