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.
Tennessee last year spent $48 million on a single drug, Humira — about $62,000 for each of the 775 patients who were covered by its employee health insurance program and receiving the treatment. So when nine Humira knockoffs, known as biosimilars, hit the market for as little as $995 a month, the opportunity for savings ...
Meg Bakewell, who has cancer and cancer-related heart disease, sometimes emails her primary care physician, oncologist, and cardiologist asking them for medical advice when she experiences urgent symptoms such as pain or shortness of breath. But she was a little surprised when, for the first time, she got a bill — a $13 copay — ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Monday authorized updated COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer (PFE.N)/BioNTech (22UAy.DE) and Moderna (MRNA.O) that target a recently circulating Omicron variant of the coronavirus, paving the way for the launch later this week of a fall vaccination campaign.
As a fourth-year ophthalmology resident at Emory University School of Medicine, Riley Lyons’ biggest responsibilities include triage: When a patient comes in with an eye-related complaint, Lyons must make an immediate assessment of its urgency. He often finds patients have already turned to “Dr. Google.” Online, Lyons said, they are likely to find that “any ...
The pharma industry is mounting a widening legal campaign against the Inflation Reduction Act. Wall Street should be paying attention.
Health-insurance costs are climbing at the steepest rate in years, walloping businesses and their workers. Costs for employer coverage are expected to surge around 6.5% for 2024, according to major benefits consulting firms Mercer and
Self-insured employers pay more for a host of medical procedures than fully insured employers, and just why should be investigated by policymakers, according to a study published today in Health Affairs. Large providers’ market saturation might be one of the reasons that self-insured employers wind up paying more for such procedures as endoscopies (8% higher in self-insured ...
Primary care physicians affiliated with large health systems drive up spending on patient care through increased referrals to specialists, emergency department visits and hospitalizations, per a study led by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Driving the news: The findings in JAMA Health Forum are the latest to challenge claims by the hospital industry that consolidation ...
This is a relatively significant drop from the 2023 affordability percentage, which is 9.12%. The ACA affordability ratio applies to Applicable Large Employers (ALEs), which are subject to the ACA’s employer mandate. ALEs must use the ratio to determine affordability of the health plans offered to eligible full-time employees, in accordance with ACA law.
The Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services is recommending that the Drug Enforcement Administration significantly loosen federal restrictions on marijuana but stopped short of advising that it should be entirely removed from the Controlled Substances Act.