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.
Healthcare policy remains a highly partisan issue. But ICHRAs — built off President Obama's 21st Century Cures Act but expanded by President Trump — is reliably bipartisan. It's worth examining how these candidates and their party platforms might influence the ICHRA market going forward.
As open enrollment begins this month at Covered California, state residents shopping for health insurance through the agency can take advantage of more financial help than at any time since the Affordable Care Act went into effect. In 2024, 1.5 million Californians received an enhanced premium tax credit from the U.S. government that they were ...
When Camila Bortolleto was 9 years old, her parents brought her from Brazil to the U.S. Bortolleto’s parents are undocumented, but in 2013 she was approved for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allowed her to get a job and, with it, job-based health insurance. Bortolleto, now 36 and living in Connecticut, left her ...
Nearly 80% of employees "strongly agree" or "agree" they will spend more time reviewing their employee benefits options and coverage this year than they did during the last enrollment period.
The IRS has announced new 401(k) contribution limits for 2025. In its release Friday, the agency increased the employee deferral limit to $23,500, up from $23,000 in 2024. The change applies to workplace plans, including 401(k)s, 403(b)s and most 457 plans, along with the federal Thrift Savings Plan. The IRS also unveiled 2025 catch-up contribution limits for savers age ...
Physicians will see their Medicare reimbursement fall 2.9% next year if Congress doesn’t stop the cuts. Meanwhile, reimbursement for hospital outpatient departments is rising 2.9%.
Just over 4 in 10 U.S. workers are extremely or very satisfied with their benefits packages, the 2024 EBRI/Greenwald Research Workplace Wellness Survey found. This percentage is in line with previous years of the survey. Health insurance is most often mentioned as a top benefit when deciding whether to stay at a current job or leave (72%), ...
At least three major insurers are eliminating broker commissions for some Medicare Advantage plans. According to documents shared with Becker’s, Elevance Health will eliminate commission payments beginning Nov. 1 for new enrollees in some Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in 15 states. The company will still pay commissions to brokers for renewing existing members. Aetna will eliminate commissions ...
In a bid to ease access challenges, CVS Health will offer in-network primary care to Aetna members in certain markets through its MinuteClinics. The services are available to certain individual plan and commercial members in Houston, San Antonio and greater Atlanta, with an eye on future expansion. There are about 1,100 MinuteClinics across the country, ...
Will any legislation surrounding prior authorization, price transparency or individual coverage health reimbursement arrangements (ICHRAs), for example, make it in an end-of-year package? Movement on new electronic prior auth standards may be possible, we learned.