Compliance
This section focuses on health care compliance and regulations – both national and state – including the ACA. It includes changes in health care law, regulation, and court decisions and their impact on health insurance professionals, employers, and individuals.
CMS issued a guidance Feb. 26 that requires group health plans to waive cost-sharing for COVID-19 testing even if a person doesn’t have symptoms or a suspected exposure, among other requirements. Five things to know: 1. The guidance clarifies that private group health plans generally can’t use medical screening criteria to deny coverage for COVID-19 tests for ...
The Biden administration is asking the Supreme Court not to hear arguments in two cases on its March calendar about the Trump administration’s plan to remake Medicaid by requiring recipients to work. The Biden administration has been moving to roll back those Trump-era plans and cited “greatly changed circumstances” in asking Monday that the cases be dropped ...
A group of Democratic state lawmakers introduced legislation Friday to create a single-payer health care system to cover all Californians, immediately defining the biggest health policy debate of the year and putting enormous political pressure on Gov. Gavin Newsom.
President Joe Biden is set to change the main US coronavirus aid program for small businesses on Monday to try to reach smaller, minority-owned businesses and sole proprietors left behind in previous rounds of aid.
Kaiser Permanente is ramping up the distribution of COVID-19 vaccination for senior members in a development being welcomed in the Bay Area and across California.
President Joe Biden’s pick for health secretary, Xavier Becerra, told senators Tuesday that tackling the coronavirus pandemic will be his first priority if confirmed, but he also pledged to work to expand health insurance coverage, curb prescription drug costs and reduce racial and ethnic disparities in medical care.
Everyone knows how politically divided the country is these days, but Americans can agree on some things: The pandemic has increased concerns about financial security in retirement, and they want Social Security to be around for the long haul to help. A new report from the National Institute on Retirement Security shows the vast majority ...
A federal government watchdog is sounding the alarm that Americans’ growing enthusiasm for telehealth services during the coronavirus pandemic has led to a worrying parallel: a “dramatic increase” in telehealth related fraud. The health department’s independent inspector general criticized policymakers for failing to put regulatory safeguards in place when they expanded access to telehealth in ...
While health plans reported sky-high profits in the early parts of 2020 due to care deferred under the pandemic, rising costs related to COVID-19 and more stable care utilization dinged their finances in the fourth quarter. Cigna was the most profitable of the major national insurers in the fourth quarter, bringing in $4.1 billion in ...
President Joe Biden signed a package of health care-related executive orders in late January that, among other initiatives, will reopen HealthCare.gov for a special, three-month insurance enrollment period starting Monday, Feb. 15.