Dive Brief: * The delta variant’s impact on hospitals that began to emerge mid-July is expected to peak late in the third quarter or early in the fourth, according to a new survey of 40 hospital CEOs and CFOs conducted by Jefferies. * Elective and non-emergent volumes were tracking down by about 30% in early September, leading ...

Living unmedicated with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, Eugenia Hunter has a hard time recalling how long she’s been staying in the tent she calls home at the bustling intersection of San Pablo Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Oakland’s hip Uptown neighborhood. Craft coffee shops and weed dispensaries are plentiful here and one-bedroom ...

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra on Thursday unveiled the Biden administration’s road map to lowering the cost of prescription drugs. The plan, summarized in a 29-page document, supports legislation that allows the federal government to negotiate lower prices on the costliest drugs each year and pass those savings on to private insurers. Current ...

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires group health plans to spend a minimum percentage of premium dollars on members’ health care expenses and services. Likewise, it sets a threshold on the maximum amount of premium dollars that can be spent on other administrative costs, such as marketing, profits, salaries, agent commissions, etc. These requirements, known ...

It’s a situation that appears incongruous: Congressional Democrats want to expand Medicare’s benefits while a trust fund that supports the program is facing insolvency. Indeed, some Republican lawmakers have seized on that looming problem as a reason to oppose a proposal to add dental, vision and hearing coverage to Medicare. The provision is included in ...

Payers and hospitals say with the COVID-19 pandemic ongoing and key elements still unreleased, it will be difficult to comply by Jan. 1.