News Briefs
✦ The Indiana Family and Social Services Administration earned CMS approval for a policy that will allow members of its Medicaid expansion program, the Healthy Indiana Plan, to spend up to $1,000 of HIP benefits o...
Health Insurers React to Protests Against Police Violence
The recent protests over how police treat communities of color has led an array of different corporations to weigh in on the matter — including not only household names such as Nike, Inc., Twitter, Inc. and The Wa...
Remote Substance Use Treatment Faces Quarantine Test
To recover from addiction, people with substance use disorders (SUDs) need support from providers and their peers. As quarantine has become a way of life, and gatherings have been banned in most states for the fores...
Payers Use Apps to Keep People Informed, Healthy During Pandemic
As the COVID-19 crisis tightened its grip on the U.S., industries from restaurants to retail turned to technology to better serve customers who were sheltering at home. Health insurers were no exception, as tech pla...
CMS Final Rule Bolsters Telehealth, Allows ESRD Patients to Enroll in MA
CMS has finalized a set of proposals for Medicare Advantage and Part D plans that encourage MA plans to increase their telehealth benefits and give end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients the right to enroll in regu...
Academy of Actuaries Report Sizes Up Federal Options to Deflect Insurer Risk
Though COVID-19 has put significant pressure on the health care system at large, payers have not yet felt the financial pain confronting hospitals, since utilization for chronic and elective care is at unprecedented...
Total Compensation for Publicly Traded Health Insurer CEOs in 2019
Click here for a pdf of the full issue...
Outpatient Visits Rebound, Yet Remain a Third Lower Than Before COVID-19
The number of visits to ambulatory care practices has rebounded since April after a 60% drop in mid-March (HPW 05/18/20, p. 7), according to a recently updated analysis by researchers at Harvard University and healt...
News Briefs
✦ Some health insurers received and then returned unsolicited payments from the $30 billion grant fund that HHS distributed to offer COVID-19 financial relief to health care providers, Modern Healthcare reported. ...
Subsidies Could Defang Risk From New COBRA Guidance Chart: For Some Newly Unemployed, Health Coverage Options Are Pricey
The Trump administration recently released guidance that will allow the newly unemployed to retroactively opt into COBRA months from now, which could increase the risk of adverse selection and thus harm fully insure...