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.
Cigna CEO David Cordani mounted a defense of pharmacy benefit managers during the company’s earnings call on Thursday morning as regulators and critics turn up the heat on the industry. Cigna owns Express Scripts, which along with CVS’ Caremark and UnitedHealth Group’s Optum Rx, dominate the PBM space. Cordani said that pharmacological innovation is a ...
Amazon is still so enthusiastic about the idea of expanding its health care operations that it accepted $1 billion in projected 2024 health care losses back in December, according to Eugene Kim of Business Insider. Kim reported, based on internal documents, that Amazon also projected that health care unit revenue would increase 30%, to $3 ...
The government subsidy to Part D plans is shifting from being reconciled on the backend to a larger risk-adjusted payment upfront.
Premiums for health insurance sold through the state’s marketplace will increase by nearly 8% in 2025, Covered California officials announced Wednesday.
The enhanced subsidies available for Affordable Care Act plans have been the key to driving massive enrollment growth, and rolling them back would likely lead to a massive spike in premium payments, according to a new report.
One owns a for-profit insurer, a venture capital company, and for-profit hospitals in Italy and Kazakhstan; it has just acquired its fourth for-profit hospital in Ireland. Another owns one of the largest for-profit hospitals in London, is partnering to build a massive training facility for a professional basketball team, and has launched and financed 80 for-profit start-ups. Another partners with a wellness spa where rooms cost $4,000 a night ...
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is creating a voluntary demonstration program to support changes to Medicare Part D under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The agency also finalized bid information for contract year 2025, with a base beneficiary premium increase of $2.08 for people with Part D. The IRA is designed to ...
In a time when drug prices are skyrocketing, imagine slashing a company’s pharmacy costs by 28% in a single year. Sound impossible? The Texas Association of Counties was able to achieve this by utilizing a pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) with a transparent, pass-through model that’s focused on keeping overall drug prices low. As the Navitus Annual ...
The US Food and Drug Administration says some people have been hospitalized with symptoms that may be related to overdoses from injectable weight-loss drugs. The agency alerted healthcare providers and patients on Friday, saying it received reports that some people sought medical attention or required hospitalization after taking incorrect doses of “compounded” semaglutide products. Compounded ...
Lawmakers bashed the business practices of pharmacy benefit managers during a House Committee on Oversight and Accountability hearing Tuesday. When they were asked repeatedly about steering patients, increased drug prices and pharmacy closures, the company executives largely refuted claims thrown at them. Lawmakers were overwhelmingly frustrated with the perceived non-answers given and at one point reminded the ...