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.
The Biden administration and federal regulators may be taking a victory lap following the unveiling of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS’) price negotiations list, but major players in the pharmaceutical industry feel the White House overstepped and think innovation will be stifled, ultimately leading to the creation of fewer life-changing drugs. Tuesday, CMS ...
Two teams of US scientists have completed lab experiments testing the antibodies from vaccinated and infected Americans to see how well they might be able to fend off currently circulating variants of the virus that causes Covid-19, including the highly mutated BA.2.86. Their results match up almost exactly, and the news – at least when ...
Jimmy Buffett died of skin cancer at his home in Sag Harbor, N.Y., on Long Island, according to a statement on the singer-songwriter’s website. After Mr. Buffett died on Friday at age 76, his site announced the death but did not give a cause or specify where he died. In an update over the weekend, the website said that ...
Blue Shield of California shocked a lot of people when it announced it was going to drop CVS Health (CVS) as its main pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) and instead go with companies like Amazon Pharmacy (AMZN) and Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs.
Rite Aid is reportedly preparing to file for bankruptcy within a few weeks to help restructure its debt and potentially halt ongoing lawsuits. The move is said to be an attempt to address mass federal and state lawsuits Rite Aid faces over its alleged role in the opioid crisis, The Wall Street Journal first reported Friday. ...
Employers' healthcare costs are anticipated to rise by 8.5% in 2024, according to Aon. The projected increase is nearly twice the 4.5% increase that employers saw from 2022 to 2023. Inflation is a major factor for the increase.
The Business Group on Health released its annual survey of large employers this week and found that 91% are either concerned or very concerned about overall pharmacy cost trend. Alongside that finding, the survey identified that the median spending on pharmacy continues to grow, rising from 21% in 2021 to 24% in 2022.
The Biden administration on Tuesday announced it is awarding $1.4 billion in grants through its coronavirus initiative to fund the development of “a new generation of tools and technologies to protect against COVID-19 for years to come.” Through the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded ...
The U.S. Justice Department said on Wednesday it has seized over $1.4 billion in COVID-19 relief funds that criminals had stolen, and charged over 3,000 defendants with crimes in federal districts across the country. The Justice Department disclosed the results of a nationwide enforcement action to combat coronavirus fraud, including federal criminal charges against 371 ...
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Wednesday the new BA.2.86 lineage of coronavirus may be more capable than older variants in causing infection in people who have previously had COVID-19 or who have received vaccines. CDC said it was too soon to know whether this might cause more severe illness ...