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.
Word & Brown General Agency Senior Director of Education and Market Development Paul Roberts, REBC, has been selected to join the National Association of Benefits and Insurance Professionals (NABIP) 2024-2025 National Legislative Council.
Healthcare legal observers are still reacting to the Supreme Court’s recent decision to gut the Chevron doctrine, fundamentally altering the power federal agencies have to handle regulations as they find appropriate. While the aftermath of the decision will likely play out in the months and years to come, many are keeping an eye out for ...
California Attorney General Rob Bonta has led 21 attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in the case of Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America v. Stolfi, advocating for laws that enhance drug price transparency. The brief, submitted to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, supports Oregon’s House Bill 4005, which mandates pharmaceutical manufacturers to ...
The Federal Trade Commission investigation of DaVita and Fresenius Medical Care follows years of consolidation in the dialysis industry.
The Biden administration is proposing a 2.8% decrease to physician payments in its newly released pay proposal for physicians, drawing near-immediate protest from the industry. Unveiled Wednesday afternoon, the calendar year 2025 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule proposed rule outlines new policies focused on primary care, preserved telehealth flexibilities and a strengthened Medicare Shared Savings Program ...
The Federal Trade Commission released a critical report detailing how pharmacy benefit managers—like CVS Health’s Caremark, Cigna’s Express Scripts and UnitedHealth’s Group OptumRx, which manage 80% of American prescriptions—could be driving up the costs of some medications and favoring their own pharmacies at the expense of independent drug stores.
The Federal Trade Commission staff is having trouble getting information from the big pharmacy benefit managers, but it believes that the big PBMs may have too "outsized influence" over the U.S. pharmaceutical system and may be steering prescription revenue to their own pharmacies.
The Federal Trade Commission is preparing a lawsuit against the three largest drug intermediaries over their use of rebates for insulin and other drugs, according to a person familiar with the probe. The agency has been investigating whether the rebate practices of insulin manufacturers and three pharmacy benefit managers — units of CVS Health Corp., ...
Congress will have to decide soon whether to continue a big, temporary increase in premium tax credit subsidies for Affordable Care Act public exchange plan coverage. If it lapses could increase enrollment in employer-sponsored coverage by millions.
A proposed rule that would require the nation's most critical industries to more quickly report cyberattacks is raising the ire of the health care industry, which claims the new directives could actually hinder its response in a crisis.