Author: Scott Welch
Many U.S. employees are experiencing “financial fragility,” according to the “2023-2024 Aflac WorkForces Report,” which examines employer and employee benefits trends and attitudes. The survey of 1,200 employers and 2,000 employees revealed that a full 50% of workers say they would not be able to afford more than $1,000 in out-of-pocket expenses for an unexpected medical event. ...
A newly released report from the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services (NV DHHS) said it may take a long time to recover from the economic, education and behavioral health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Blue Shield of California will partner with Included Health to provide support and service to about 400,000 CalPERS PPO members.
Growing demand for care, record levels of insured patients and swelling Medicare enrollment will drive up annual health care spending to $7.7 trillion by 2032, up from $4.8 trillion last year, according to new projections from federal actuaries.
State health policy officials want to harness emerging artificial intelligence technology to translate a broad swath of documents and websites related to “health and social services information, programs, benefits and services,” according to state records.
California lawmakers on Thursday passed a 2024-25 budget that rejected Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to cut in-home supportive services for low-income older, blind, and disabled immigrants lacking legal residency. However, the Democratic governor has not said whether he’ll use his line-item veto authority to help close the state’s $45 billion deficit. The legislature, controlled by Democrats, passed a ...
Amazon Pharmacy is expanding its prescription drug subscription program, called RxPass, to Prime members on Medicare insurance. The RxPass program, launched in January 2023, provides unlimited access to 60 eligible generic medications and will ship the medications to customers’ homes for a flat monthly fee of $5, along with 24/7 access to a pharmacist, according to the ...
The number of Americans without health insurance dropped by about a fourth from 2019 to 2023, US health researchers said, as the government tried to bolster coverage during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2023, 25 million Americans of all ages were uninsured, down from 33.2 million in 2019, according to preliminary survey results released Tuesday by ...
Since Amazon acquired the primary-care service One Medical, elderly patients have been routed to a call center — staffed partly by contractors with limited training — that failed on more than a dozen occasions to seek immediate attention for callers with urgent symptoms, according to internal documents seen by The Washington Post. When one patient ...
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will rework Medicare Advantage (MA) quality ratings for this year. Private insurers will treat the decision as good news, as some health plans could receive “hundreds of millions in additional payments,” The Wall Street Journal first reported June 13. SCAN Health Plan and Elevance Health recently took CMS to court over a ...