Healthbox is joining RockHealth in expanding to Boston. The Chicago accelerator announced yesterday at its Investor Day that applications are now open for a class that will run from August to October.At the grand finale for the first class of entrepreneurs, 10 companies presented ideas that ranged from inventing hand-washing 2.0 to using conversation analysis [...]

Among the lesser-known but more far-reaching provisions of federal health reform is the medical loss ratio requirement that the law imposes on health insurance companies.Medical loss ratio (MLR) regulations are aimed at controlling cost and dictate that insurers must spend a certain percentage of the premium dollars they collect on medical care, rather than on [...]

It has never made sense to me to that dental insurance is not included in comprehensive medical insurance. Maybe it’s because dental care was originally seen as mainly cosmetic or because dentists aren’t medical doctors. I suspect there’s also concern about adding dental insurance to medical coverage due to the added cost. In any case, [...]

Wellness programs that encourage workers to stop smoking or lose weight are showing up in more health insurance plans, state health plans included.But North Carolina’s State Health Plan took a different course this year. A comprehensive wellness plan introduced in 2009 was eliminated. Instead, the more than 664,000 teachers, state employees and retirees in North [...]

At the national level, the very constitutionality of President Obama’s healthcare law is being debated.Here in Minnesota, Democratic Governor Mark Dayton is pushing ahead to create something that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires — the establishment of a state healthcare exchange where small businesses and individuals can buy health insurance. By executive [...]

The boss at one of the nation’s biggest health insurers recently dropped a very public bombshell about the future of his industry–by forecasting its imminent death.At a February conference in Las Vegas, Aetna president Mark Bertolini told a crowd of thousands that “the end of insurance companies, the way we’ve run the business in the [...]

Healthcare reform discussion about healthcare costs often turns to private insurance plans. But state health plans have a stake in the matter too, and in some ways they’re more vulnerable.State workers are less likely than their public sector counterparts to be uninsured. States also typically pay a higher share of the insurance premium compared to [...]

Healthcare reform advocates say true reform will require change from all players who have a hand in the healthcare system. GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK) is making its case for the role that Big Pharma can play.Jack Bailey, GSK’s senior vice president, policy, payers and vaccines, said science is still the core of the Britain-based company’s business of [...]

A week before the federal healthcare reform law is set to be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Affordable Care Act took center stage at a North Carolina forum to discuss the healthcare system.A hospital system executive supported the law’s goals of increasing patient access and improving quality. A budget hawk argued that healthcare [...]

A Minnesota nonprofit health provider and insurer is launching a Web portal for businesses who want to promote workplace wellness.HealthPartners announced Monday that the new interactive Web portal can be customized to individual businesses to reflect its branding, customized for each individual employee who participates, and can integrate various health and wellness programs that a [...]