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.
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.
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. ...