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.
Providers say they dodged a bullet when the Biden administration decided to redesign the Direct Contracting Model instead of eliminating it entirely as progressive lawmakers and groups demanded. However, it remains unclear whether the redesigned model set to launch next year will quell criticisms from progressives that the model will lead to the privatization of ...
Employers continue to grapple with the ripple effects of the pandemic as more than one-third of employees report long COVID symptoms that impact their ability to work, including higher rates of depression, anxiety and absenteeism. Among those employees who are still having long-term effects, 71% are experiencing greater levels of depression or anxiety and many ...
CVS Caremark kept overall drug trend for clients to 2.4% over the first three quarters of 2021, marking multiple years of single-digit trend in drug price growth. The pharmacy benefit management arm of CVS Health also kept its specialty drug trend to single digits through the third quarter, at an industry-low 5.8%, according to the ...
Those working in the healthcare sector saw smaller average wage increases during the first 15 months of the pandemic compared to workers across other industries, according to a recent analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Average wages in healthcare rose 5% from 2019 to 2020 while all industries’ average wages rose 6.7% during ...
U.S. health officials are optimistic, albeit cautiously, the country has turned the corner on the unprecedented wave of infection caused by the omicron Covid variant as new cases plummet 90% from a pandemic record set just five weeks ago. As the nation emerges from the omicron wave, U.S. and state leaders are trying to mentally ...
The long-awaited guidance is finally here. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday significantly eased its mask recommendations, including for schools, as part of updated guidance for dealing with COVID-19. Under the new guidelines, more than 70 percent of the U.S. population is in an area with “low” or “medium” COVID-19 community level, ...
Just 3% of white collar workers want to return to the office five days a week, according to a poll by management consultancy Advanced Workplace Associates, which warned employees will quit if bosses force them back full-time.
With prospects dim for the U.S. to adopt a single-payer “Medicare for All” program, health care reform advocates turned instead to an insurance plan designed by the government that could compete with private insurance plans sold on the health care exchanges. The idea behind this “public option” is that it could ultimately expand health care ...
As some of the biggest U.S. employers lift mask mandates for vaccinated workers, other companies are going even further and discarding requirements that employees get their COVID-19 shots. Germany’s Adidas told its U.S. workers on Monday that it would no longer require they get vaccinated against the virus. “Though no longer required, we strongly encourage all employees to ...
Lawmakers aren’t eager to spend big — again — on a pandemic many would just as soon declare over. President Joe Biden’s cabinet members and public health experts say they are running out of money to battle Covid-19 and need tens of billions more dollars to continue vaccination, testing and medicine distribution efforts at home ...