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.
Booming demand for newer weight-loss and diabetes drugs is expected to accelerate the rise in medical expenses for employers in the United States next year, staff health benefits consultant Mercer said on Friday. GLP-1 medications approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration could contribute between 50 and 100 basis points to the trend, Mercer’s ...
The U.S. government on Monday will start taking orders for another round of free COVID-19 tests for delivery across the country, a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spokesperson said. Households that had ordered four free tests through COVIDTests.gov when they were offered again in September are eligible to order four more, while those that did ...
The Food and Drug Administration has finalized a long-running effort to require prescription drug ads on TV and radio to clearly lay out potential side effects and when a person should avoid a medicine. Why it matters: While the number of drug ads has surged and they account for billions of dollars in direct-to-consumer marketing, experts say they primarily rely ...
The Biden administration’s first major step toward imposing limits on the pharmacy benefit managers who act as the drug industry’s price negotiators is backfiring, pharmacists say. Instead, it’s adding to the woes of the independent drugstores it was partly designed to help. The so-called PBMs have long clawed back a fee from pharmacies weeks or ...
Employers will be facing a changing landscape when it comes to health care in 2024, as they continue to see significant spending in the areas of mental health, prescription drugs and cancer treatment, says a new survey.
The House of Representatives passed a “two-step” spending bill last week that, along with delaying a government shutdown, bumps back pay cuts for hospitals and extends community health center and training programs.
Kaiser Permanente's healthcare workers voted to ratify a new contract with the hospital chain, the union said on Thursday, ending a months-long negotiation that resulted in the largest recorded strike in the U.S. medical sector.
A new report on how smaller employers have been dealing with rising health care costs revealed that more than 40% are considering switching insurers and more than 25% are looking at increasing deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs for employees.
The e-commerce giant says its Prime customers can now get quick access to a health care provider through a program that costs $9 a month or $99 annually.
For the more than 100 million American adults with obesity, medications such as semaglutide (known by its brand names Wegovy and Ozempic) and tirzepatide, a version of which the Food and Drug Administration approved last week, could be transformative. These drugs are remarkably effective in reducing weight, managing diabetes and reducing cardiovascular complications. But there is still much we don’t ...