GOP lawmakers in both the House and Senate passed a federal tax bill that includes a repeal of the ACA’s individual mandate to purchase health insurance. The bill now heads back to the...
Aetna will be the first national payer to waive Narcan co-pays for fully-insured members as part of a larger effort to address the nation’s opioid crisis, the payer announced in a press release....
Cigna’s integrated care model partnership with Texas-based Catalyst Health helped reduce the health system’s total medical costs to 5.6 percent below industry averages, the organizations...
Optum, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, has agreed to acquire DaVita Medical Group for $4.9 billion, expanding the health care services company’s footprint in the direct care delivery...
The US Senate voted 51-49 to reform national tax policy and simultaneously repeal the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, major news outlets reported at the end of last week.
GOP senators...
CVS Caremark, the pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) of CVS Health, will provide pharmacies and prescribers with real-time benefits data on patients as a way to reduce payer and patient drug costs, the...
A merger between Tribal First (a subsidiary of Alliant Specialty Insurance Services) and American Indian Health Services (AIHS) will combine two national leaders in providing quality care to Native...
As a potential repeal of the ACA’s individual mandate faces the US Senate, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Joint Tax Committee (JTC) found that a repeal would cut the number of insured...
Former National Coordinator for Health IT and Assistant HHS Secretary Karen DeSalvo, will join Humana’s board of directors, the payer announced in a press release.
Humana believes that the...
Health plans that include value-based care (VBC) principles are more cost-effective than fee-for-service (FFS) options and are starting to produce better patient outcomes, Humana asserts in a new...
The state of Maine has become the first state to expand Medicaid through a ballot vote that overrides Governor Paul R. LePage’s (ME-R) previous decisions to block the expansion, according to...
Anthem BlueCross BlueShield plans to add value onto consumer Medicare Advantage (MA) plans by offering personal emergency response systems (PERS) to beneficiaries, the payer announced in a series of...
Analysts expect up to a 13 percent drop in open enrollment on the ACA marketplace exchange in 2018, according to Standard and Poor’s Global (S&P Global).
Only 10.1 million to 11.4...
AHIP launched the Safe, Transparent Opioid Prescribing (STOP) Initiative to support health plans’ widespread adoption of clinical guidelines for pain care and opioid prescribing, and combat the...
Mercy Health of Arkansas and the Centene Corporation have received approval to operate an accountable care organization within the state focusing on Medicaid beneficiaries, the organizations announced...
The Bipartisan Health Care Stabilization Act of 2017, also known as the Alexander-Murray compromise bill, would save the federal government $3.8 billion without drastically changing the number of...
Iowa Insurance Commissioner Doug Ommen has withdrawn his state’s application for a 1332 waiver to stabilize its insurance markets in 2018.
The proposed stopgap measure included a...
Anthem is offering home meal delivery service to its post-discharge Medicare Advantage plan members in in several states including Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, and Wisconsin the payer...
Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TX) and Patty Murray (D-WH) have floated a bipartisan deal to reinstate the ACA’s cost-sharing reductions (CSRs) and boost individual enrollment outreach in...
An executive order signed by President Trump will lighten rules on association health plans (AHPs), which could allow groups of businesses to provide lower cost insurance without essential health...
