As Pandemic Flexibilities Unwind, Here’s How Enrollment In Different Types Of Coverage Could Change

As flexibilities rolled out during the COVID-19 pandemic wind down, there will be plenty of factors at play that could impact uninsured rates in the coming years. Analysts at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) project that while the rate will increase from current levels, it will decline over the next decade from pre-pandemic levels. They ...

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Employers Face Soaring Demand For Obesity Care Benefits. Virtual Care Players Are Jumping In With A Slew Of Offerings

Employers are seeing surging demand from their workers for benefits that cover obesity treatment and this is opening up considerable market opportunities for virtual care players. A recent survey found that 44% of people with obesity would change jobs to gain coverage for treatment. And more than half of workers would stay at a job they ...

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Denials of Health Insurance Claims Are Rising — And Getting Weirder

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 ...

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‘We’re At A Standstill’: Patients Can Face Agonizing Waits For Hospital Transfers

When the pain kicked in again in February, Lahisha Marquez-Soto held off on going to the hospital for days, until she was struggling to walk out of her college dorm in Carson. Eight days into her stay at MLK Community Hospital, doctors knew she needed another facility. She needed a medical procedure that would allow ...

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Healthcare Must Set Guardrails Around AI For Transparency And Safety

Four in 10 patients perceive implicit bias in their physicians, according to a MITRE-Harris survey on the patient experience. In addition to patients being extra sensitive to provider bias, the use of AI tools and machine learning models also have been shown to skew toward racial bias. On a related note, a recent study found 60% of Americans ...

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CVS Could Lose Up To $1B Next Year From MA Star Ratings Drop

Dive Brief: CVS expects its 2024 operating income to drop by $800 million to $1 billion next year due to lost bonus payments from lower plan star ratings in the Medicare Advantage program. Just 21% of CVS’ MA members are currently in plans with a star rating of at least four, down from 87% at the ...

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Debt Deal Claws Back COVID Relief, Spares Medicaid

Democrats beat back efforts to attach Medicaid work requirements to a debt limit deal, but the agreement reached over the weekend will claw back about $30 billion of unspent COVID relief funds and likely bring more budget austerity to federal health agencies. Why it matters: GOP negotiators had increasingly insisted that Medicaid work requirements needed to ...

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Legislature Passes Health Care Stipends For Substitute Teachers

The Nevada Legislature has passed a bill that provides long-term substitute teachers who work for 30 or more days with a $450 monthly subsidy to purchase health care. The state Senate voted 16-4 Tuesday to approve the bill. It passed the Assembly in April by a vote of 31-11. Assembly Republicans Gregory Koenig, Heidi Kasama and Toby Yurek and Senate ...

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‘Work Requirements’ Emerge As Flashpoint In Debt Ceiling, Spending Talks

As Washington struggles to reach a debt ceiling deal with little more than a week until potential default, a key hangup in the negotiations is turning out to be -- "work requirements."

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CMS Proposed Rule Aims To Shed Light On Prescription Drug Costs For Medicaid

The Biden administration issued a proposed rule Tuesday that aims to shed light on the price of prescription drugs covered by Medicaid. Under the proposal (PDF), pharmacy benefit managers, or pharmacy middlemen, that contract with Medicaid would have to disclose the prices they pay for medications in an effort to improve price transparency and pull the reins on ...

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