Health Spending Expected To Outpace Growth In The Overall Economy

A recent report from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) shows that per capita health spending slowed in 2021. The growth rate was 2.6% down from 9.9% in 2020, after a ramp-up that year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As utilization returns to pre-pandemic levels and price inflation in the health sector abates somewhat, per ...

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Smaller Employers Weigh a Big-Company Fix for Scarce Primary Care: Their Own Clinics

With his company’s health costs soaring and his workers struggling with high blood pressure and other medical conditions, Winston Griffin, CEO of Laurel Grocery Co., knew his company had to do something. So the London, Kentucky, wholesaler opened a health clinic. “Our margins are tiny, so every expense is important,” Griffin said. The clinic, he ...

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Warning Signs For The U.S. Health System Are Piling Up

Staffing shortages, more dangerous workplaces, aging physicians and the increasing politicization of medicine: The warning signs for America’s burned-out health care workforce are all there. Why it matters: A strained health care system may be heading in a dangerous direction in the pandemic’s aftermath, according to new data points and a blunt warning from the head of the ...

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Biden Administration Overhauls Surprise Billing Resolution Process Amid Controversy

The Biden administration is moving to overhaul how health insurers and healthcare providers hash out payment for surprise medical bills, amid heavy criticism of the process. Regulators proposed a rule on Friday that they say is the result of feedback received on that independent dispute resolution process, or IDR. The changes are meant to make billing ...

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Dads Drive Growth in California’s Paid Family Leave Program

In a sign of growing domestic equality, more new dads are claiming paid family leave to bond with their babies and support their partners during the first weeks of parenthood. In California, which has one of the nation’s oldest programs, men filed 44% of bonding claims last year, up from 31% a decade prior, according to state ...

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Insurers Spar With Biden Administration Over Coverage for Mental-Health Care

Many consumers with insurance are forced to pay hundreds and even thousands of dollars a year on mental-health care despite a 15-year-old law that is supposed to make such treatment as affordable and accessible as any other type of medical care. Now the Biden administration wants to impose new requirements on insurers that it says ...

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When Daylight Saving Ends, Don’t Be Surprised If You Feel These Health Impacts

When the clock is set back, does your world get turned a little upside down? Daylight Saving Time will end on Sunday, November 5, moving the clocks in most US states back an hour – and that is no small thing for our health, according to Dr. Rajkumar Dasgupta, associate professor of clinical medicine at the University ...

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Medicare Advantage Brokers (And Deceptive Pitches) Scrutinized At Senate Hearing

At a Senate hearing on Wednesday, lawmakers called for additional oversight over private companies offering Medicare Advantage, in response to misleading and predatory advertising targeting seniors during open enrollment.

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Kaiser Permanente’s New Era Of Patient Convenience

Narayanan Gopala, chief digital officer of Kaiser Permanente, based in Oakland, Calif., said the health system is enhancing its digital offerings for patients in a bid to make healthcare easier. Kaiser Permanente recently improved its digital check-in process, allowing patients to fill out pre-appointment forms and make copayments through their Kaiser app before arriving at the medical ...

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ACA Compliance: 4 Common Violations And 3 Strategies To Avoid Them

You can avoid the most common pitfalls of ACA noncompliance if you understand the most common types of violations and then implement three strategies to prevent falling victim to them.

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