Industry Updates
This broad category includes articles concerning health insurance costs, carrier and health plan news, changing benefits technology, and surveys by the Kaiser Family Foundation and others on employee benefits.
A new task force will investigate healthcare fraud cases in Nevada, Arizona and part of California, the Justice Department announced Thursday. The West Coast Health Care Fraud Strike Force will combine resources from DOJ’s National Fraud Enforcement Division, and its the Health Care Fraud Section, with U.S. attorney’s offices in Nevada, Arizona and the Northern ...
In his earliest days in the governor’s office, Gavin Newsom huddled with his advisers to consider how to realize a key campaign promise: transforming a healthcare system replete with insurance company intermediaries into the nation’s first state-run single-payer model.
Fighting for health care claim approvals 05:19 UnitedHealthcare said on Tuesday it is eliminating “prior authorization” requirements for 30% of medical services that previously required insurer approval, a policy shift that could eliminate red tape and speed access to patient care. The move comes amid pressure on the health insurance industry to limit prior authorizations, ...
At Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital, patients on gurneys line the hallways of the emergency department waiting for care, and overflow mental health patients are consigned to outdoor tents. The 152-bed hospital, which sits on a sprawling medical campus close to the predominantly Latino and Black neighborhood of Watts, is struggling for financial stability. ...
A salaried job with health benefits has long been considered the gold standard of employment in the US. But now, as sharply rising health care premiums eat into workers’ pay, young, healthy professionals are rejecting employer-sponsored insurance. Instead, they’re going without coverage or finding cheaper options, saying they can’t afford to be on the company plan. ...
President Donald Trump has pulled his surgeon general nomination of Casey Means, M.D., and announced a new pick to become the nation’s doctor: Nicole Saphier, M.D., a radiologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering and a Fox News medical contributor. The shift comes nearly a year after the initial nomination of Means, an author, blogger and health tech company ...
On the heels of Capital Blue Cross partnering with the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Co. to make lower-cost biosimilar alternatives to Humira and Stelara available to commercial members, CenterWell Pharmacy (a part of Humana Inc.) announced plans to develop end-to-end employer prescription solutions with Cost Plus Drugs. As part of this collaboration, Cost Plus Drugs’ ...
House Republicans during a Tuesday hearing blamed hospital and health systems for high health costs, excoriating a group of CEOs for exorbitant benefits packages, large profit margins and mergers. “Our communities are better off with hospitals in them, but large health systems have taken advantage of that reality,” Ways and Means Committee chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) said. “Simply put, hospitals are charging an insane amount for care.” ...
Hospital CEOs came under fire at a House hearing Tuesday, with Republicans accusing them of overcharging patients and exploiting the system. Executives from HCA Healthcare, CommonSpirit Health, New York-Presbyterian and ECU Health testified before the House Ways and Means Committee, defending their pricing practices — including that they should be able to charge higher prices for the same services ...
Humana executives gave investors a peek Wednesday into the company’s thinking around the 2027 Medicare Advantage bid cycle as elevated costs continue to sting the industry. CEO Jim Rechtin said during the insurer’s earnings call that to achieve the goal of returning to a “stable margin” by 2028, it will need to look at adjustments ...