Square peg, round hole. More than a third of silver plans offered on the federal health insurance marketplace may be listing inaccurate or incomplete prescription drug cost-sharing information because their formularies don’t fit neatly into the federal government’s online template, a recent analysis found. Healthcare.gov is the online gateway for consumers in 37 states to compare […]
They used to call high deductible health plans “consumer-directed” plans. That was before people realized there is nothing particularly consumer driven about them. A recent poll –not the first of its kind– shows that people with high deductible plans tend to forego care. In fact they skip both unneeded and needed care. Most people don’t like the […]
Munck Wilson Mandala Partner Greg Howison shared his perspective on some of the legal ramifications around AI, IP, connected devices and the data they generate, in response to emailed questions.
The majority of people who signed up for Medicare Advantage plans in recent years were switching out of the traditional Medicare program, according to a recent study. The findings contradict the popular belief that growth in Medicare Advantage has been fueled primarily by people who choose it when they first become eligible for Medicare. The […]
In health insurance prices, as in the weather, Alaska and the Sun Belt are extremes. This year Alaska is the most expensive health insurance market for people who do not get coverage through their employers, while Phoenix, Albuquerque, N.M., and Tucson, Ariz., are among the very cheapest. In this second year of the insurance marketplaces […]
A review of The Commonwealth Fund‘s top five reports of 2014 offers some important clues on how to address quality of care issues on a local regional and international level. A report that placed the US healthcare system dead last behind Canada and nine European countries emerged as the top publication on the Commonwealth Fund’s […]
Despite being separated by a big body of water and quite a few language barriers, there are few shared struggles in healthcare between the US and Europe. An Economist article highlighting the rise of telemedicine in the European Union calls attention to the issue of reimbursement and implementation in its member countries. As the article […]
At the Abarca Forward conference earlier this year, George Van Antwerp, managing director at Deloitte, discussed how social determinants of health and a personalized member experience can improve medication adherence and health outcomes.
Dr. Richard Amerling, president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, writing from New York, had this to say in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal: A patient recently asked, “What would happen if there was no health insurance?” I responded, “The prices for all medical goods and services would immediately plummet.” I would direct his attention […]
Employers interested in using employer plans to pare down unnecessary healthcare costs could draw some encouragement from a report highlighting what a handful of companies achieved by rolling out these plans. The report Driving Innovation in the Health Care Marketplace by Business Roundtable seeks to show what happens when employers can make use of greater […]
Digital health company HealthPrize Technologies is expanding an incentive program to motivate medication adherence tool that offers points towards prizes in exchange for patient engagement. It is moving beyond pharmaceutical companies which have been the main client base since its platform launch in 2010. It wants to expand its customer base with employers and payers, […]
The big telemedicine story this week has been Towers Watson’s projection that telemedicine will save companies $6 billion in the next few years. It also figured into a big infographic illustrating a survey of how companies are tweaking their employer health insurance. But how did it reach that number? I emailed one of the senior […]
We will highlight Build My Health's revenue practice management tools, which could help physician practices add up to $250,000 to their practices.
With news that Richard Branson sees telemedicine as a decent investment opportunity, it raises the question of whether a dominant telemedicine model will emerge. That was one of the observations shared by Katerina Fialkovskaya, co-founder and managing partner at Boston-based OKM Capital. She welcomed Branson’s entrance into the market last week and noted: “The flow of […]
Affordable Care Act was supposed to mend what President Barack Obama called a broken health care system, but its best-known programs — online insurance and expanded Medicaid for the poor affect a relatively small portion of Americans
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — The dominion of Tennessee’s largest health insurer is reflected in its headquarters’ lofty perch above the city, atop a hill that during the Civil War was lined with Union cannons to repel Confederate troops. BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee has used its position to establish a similarly firm foothold in the first year […]
Medicare officials have allowed patients at dozens of hospitals participating in pilot projects across the country to be exempted from the controversial requirement that limits nursing home coverage to seniors admitted to a hospital for at least three days. The idea behind these experiments is to find out whether new payment arrangements with the hospitals […]
Snoop Dog parodies, kegstands, Hollywood celebrities sharing personal stories. Where did it all go wrong? Despite working very hard to appeal to the all-important healthy and young millennial demographic, state and federal government has stumbled many times in making health insurance appealing to an age group struggling to pay off student debt and find a decent […]