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 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has issued new guidance allowing Medicare Advantage plans to maintain coverage of certain telehealth services that technically expired when federal telehealth authorities lapsed on October 1, 2025. Under the announcement, CMS will temporarily waive the prohibition on mid-year benefit changes to permit plans to continue offering these ...
High-deductible health plans were introduced to curb rising health care premiums and costs with the aim of giving employees more control over spending and driving a consumer-driven approach to care. Yet over time, HDHPs have shifted from being a strategic choice to a default option for millions of Americans: today, 58% of privately insured individuals are enrolled, ...
David Delfiner and Lisa Parsons received a shocking letter from their health insurance provider when they checked their mail last week. Their monthly health insurance cost will increase from $350 a month this year to $2,221 starting in 2026. “It’s insane. It’s unbelievable,” said Parsons, a 59-year-old retiree living in South Lake Tahoe. The couple is not ...
After several volatile years after the Affordable Care Act was first implemented, individual Marketplace premiums have become more similar to employer-sponsored coverage. “When insurers entered the ACA Marketplaces in 2014, they were operating with virtually no experience participating in an individual market like this,” according to a Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker report. “Insurers must submit premiums almost a year in advance ...
Executives at Aon and Arthur J. Gallagher say that the U.S. labor market still looks strong, but that big increases in U.S. health coverage costs are definitely getting employers’ attention. At Aon, the health solutions unit increased revenue 6%. “This is a 20%-plus segment of the U.S. economy, and costs are growing at 9% to 10% a year,” ...
In June, Becker’s predicted that 2025 would shape up to be the year of AI agents in healthcare. While AI agents are nothing new, more insurers are getting on the bandwagon. AI agents complete tasks autonomously to achieve specific goals. More broadly, though, AI use in health insurance has been contentious. CMS released AI guidance for Medicare Advantage plans in an effort ...
Medicare has locked in a controversial pay cut for specialty doctors next year, normalizing reimbursement between specialists and primary care doctors and curbing the influence of a powerful physician association in setting rates. The CMS finalized the 2026 Medicare physician fee schedule on Friday. The massive payment rule includes a so-called “efficiency adjustment,” which reduces ...
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is launching an effort to streamline the approval process for cheaper alternative “biosimilar” versions of biologic drugs as a way to curb health costs. The agency published a draft guidance for industry Wednesday that would potentially make it faster and less costly for companies to develop biologics and bring them to market, leading to increased competition and lower drug costs for patients. The ...
This year’s Obamacare open enrollment period, which started Nov. 1 in most states, is full of uncertainty and confusion for the more than 24 million people who buy health insurance through the federal and state Affordable Care Act marketplaces. Even with sign-up season underway, the fate of the enhanced premium tax credits that make coverage more affordable ...
The top drug regulator at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) resigned Sunday, according to officials, after being accused of using his position of authority to publicly denigrate a treatment tied to a former business associate. Dr. George Tidmarsh, a drug industry veteran who joined the administration in July, was placed on administrative leave Friday ...