Medicare & Medicaid
News articles in this section include actions by federal regulators like the CMS and HHS, as well as information on Medicare and state Medicaid coverage and benefits.
A House panel has advanced legislation to expand the eligibility for Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchange plan subsidies, taking another step toward final passage.
The number of Medicare Advantage plans that offer supplemental benefits continues to grow, according to new data from the Better Medicare Alliance. The analysis, conducted by Milliman, found the number of plans offering such benefits increased across 36 out of 41 categories from 2020 to plan year 2021. That includes increases across 15 of 17 traditional supplemental ...
Approximately 30% of hospitals are not complying with a new rule that requires them to post payer-negotiated rates, with a lack of resources the main reason, a new analysis found. The analysis of more than 1,000 providers across 27 states completed by consulting firm Guidehouse found larger health systems were more likely to comply with the rule ...
COVID-19 caused a massive 51% drop in outpatient Medicare fee-for-service claims last April compared to 2019 as the pandemic reached full swing, according to a new analysis. The analysis, released Tuesday from consulting firm Avalere Health, sought to explore the impact of the pandemic on healthcare utilization from March through May. The pandemic caused doctors’ offices to ...
Oscar Health has officially filed to go public. The tech-enabled startup insurer filed for its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, where it intends to list its stocks under the ticker OSCR. Details on the plans beyond that were limited. “The number of shares of Class A common stock to be offered ...
More than 3 million Medicare Advantage beneficiaries chose plans for the 2021 coverage year that provide additional supplemental benefits for chronic illnesses, a major increase over the more than 1 million that signed up in 2020, a new analysis found. The analysis, released Friday by consulting firm Avalere Health, also found the number of enrollees in ...
Ah, the vexing problem of prescription drug prices. As a share of healthcare expenditures, prescription drugs account for about a dime for every dollar spent. And it’s been that way for a very long time. Yet, for patients, because coverage of prescription drugs is much less comprehensive than reimbursement for hospital and physician services they feel the ...
The new Biden administration has started off strong, taking a thoughtful approach to any number of critical health care issues and pulling back a number of new regulations to take a fresh look at these public policy issues. To avoid significant disruption of the Medicare Part D program and avoid a spike in premiums at ...
Insurer groups are praising President Joe Biden’s move to create a three-month special enrollment period despite concerns about the potential for adverse selection. The support means insurers likely believe they could get a large enough pool of new sign-ups to mitigate any changes to the risk pool, several experts said.
Late last month, before President Joe Biden took office and proposed his pandemic relief plan, Congress passed a nearly 5,600-page legislative package that provided some pandemic relief along with its more general allocations to fund the government in 2021.