Health Plan Weekly

Despite a pressing need to revise telehealth laws to match the new, post-pandemic expectations of patients, payers and providers, D.C. insiders tell AIS Health, a division of MMIT, that Congress may not actually pass legislation on the issue. With Congress preoccupied by the midterm elections and the possible revival of the Biden administration’s signature Build Back Better Act (BBBA), chances for standalone legislation on telehealth are slipping away.

That doesn’t mean that Congress won’t address telehealth regulations. But telehealth reforms will likely have to pass as part of a larger piece of legislation. That’s how the No Surprises Act, which banned surprise billing, finally made its way through Congress.

Health insurers have ramped up their use of digital tools to improve customer satisfaction, but still have more work to do — particularly as utilization returns to normal two years after the pandemic’s start. Customer satisfaction is lagging after several years of improving scores, and digital tools are disappointing some enrollees.

J.D. Power’s 2022 U.S. Commercial Member Health Plan Study identified call center customer support and digital tools as “key areas in need of improvement,” the advisory firm said May 26. “Health plan members expect a personalized, hands-on experience when dealing with customer support and they expect a seamless digital experience when engaging online. Health plans have some work to do to get the formulas right,” said Christopher Lis, managing director, global healthcare intelligence at J.D. Power.

Several new studies have found that telehealth flexibilities introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic increased access to care for patients who would otherwise struggle to get it. However, the same researchers say that telehealth can’t solve health care disparities on its own — and that lots of work needs to be done to make sure that the incremental improvements made possible by improved telehealth access are durable.

A study published in the May edition of the journal Health Affairs by researchers from Johns Hopkins University found that Medicare patients “living in the most deprived neighborhoods had the highest rates of telemedicine use….Overall, our findings are encouraging, as they suggest that the Medicare telemedicine coverage waiver could improve access to health care for people in the most disadvantaged US neighborhoods without worsening disparities.”

Here’s how major U.S. health insurers performed financially in the first quarter of 2022. Health Plan Weekly subscribers can access more health plan financial data — including year-over-year comparisons of leading health plans’ net income, premium revenue, medical loss ratios and net margins. Just email support@aishealth.com to request spreadsheets for current and past quarters.

Health care consulting firm Avalere Health has been sold to Fishawack Health, by previous owner Inovalon Health. In a letter to clients disclosing the deal, Avalere President Elizabeth Carpenter said that Avalere would “retain our logo and brand,” and “your client teams will remain the same and there will be no change to your current business relationship with Avalere. Everyone you know and love from Avalere is joining Fishawack, including all of our practice leadership.”

A new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that little information is available about the role that short-term health plans played during the COVID-19 pandemic — and that state regulators are not watching the industry closely. Short-term health plans are not required to meet all the standard benefits mandated by the Affordable Care Act. Per the report, “GAO found that limited and inconsistent data hinder understanding of the role short-term plans played during the COVID-19 pandemic for those who lost [employer-sponsored insurance], such as whether they were used by consumers as temporary coverage or as a longer-term alternative to ACA-compliant plans….State officials in the five states with plan sales were not able to report on the role of short-term plans for consumers, as none of them collected data on the duration of short-term plan coverage.”

While inflation hits consumers at car dealerships, airline counters and grocery stores, health insurers and hospitals also are seeing inflationary pressure, particularly with the so-called Great Resignation underway and labor costs skyrocketing.

The Labor Department reported on May 11 that the Consumer Price Index rose 8.3% over the 12-month period that ended in April 2022, down only slightly from the four-decade high of 8.5% reported in March.

“There’s no question that the labor market is tight. So, as you think about inflation, we hear it certainly from our provider partners, and we see it in certain parts of our own business,” Anthem, Inc. CEO Gail Boudreaux told investors during an April 20 conference call to discuss first-quarter 2022 financial results, per The Motley Fool.

HHS and the Treasury Department on May 19 approved Virginia’s waiver for a state reinsurance program starting on Jan. 1, 2023. Although states have been less aggressive when it comes to applying for reinsurance programs recently, the looming expiration of enhanced premium tax credits in the individual marketplace could create renewed interest in reinsurance, policy experts tell AIS Health, a division of MMIT. That would be welcome news for insurers who are in favor of such programs because they incentivize more individuals to enroll in plans, create a more balanced risk pool and help insurers deal with large claims.

Reinsurance programs are primarily focused on lowering premiums for individuals who did not previously qualify for subsidies on the Affordable Care Act exchanges. In early 2021, the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) made enhanced subsidies available to people whose incomes are above 400% of the federal poverty level, the previous threshold, leading to a smaller number of people who benefited from reinsurance.

Republican leaders in North Carolina, one of a dozen states that have yet to broaden access to Medicaid programs, say that they are now ready to embrace expansion, which may be a boon to its managed care organizations.

By widening Medicaid eligibility to limits allowed under the Affordable Care Act, North Carolina would enroll an additional 600,000 individuals, a sharp increase over the 2.7 million currently covered under Medicaid in the state, according to a summary of a draft bill first reported on by Axios.

In a May 25 press conference, state Senate leader Phil Berger called Medicaid expansion “the right thing for us to do,” citing the need for coverage for low-income individuals and families and the federal government’s responsibility to pick up 90% of costs for enrollees newly eligible under the expanded coverage guidelines, according to reports.

Most non-pediatric office-based physicians accepted new patients, with similar shares accepting new Medicare (89%) and privately insured patients (91%), according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis based on the 2019 National Electronic Health Records Survey. A smaller share of primary care physicians accepted new patients with Medicare or private insurance than physicians in other medical or surgical specialties. Across the nation, the share of physicians accepting new Medicare patients ranged from 95% in Iowa, Minnesota and Pennsylvania to 76% in the District of Columbia, similar to the range across states for privately insured patients. As of March 2022, only 1% of non-pediatric physicians formally opted out of the Medicare program, with psychiatrists accounting for 42% of these physicians opting out.

While health insurers have made gains in consumer satisfaction in recent years, that progress stalled over the last year, according to a new report from J.D. Power & Associates. “Overall satisfaction has increased…during the past five years, but there is no change in 2022 from 2021, due in part to declines in satisfaction in customer service and dissatisfaction with coverage options and desired network providers,” a J.D. Power press release said. The report said that the health plans that members call “responsive” and “innovative” received the best satisfaction scores. Members also critiqued long hold times at call centers and have found decreasing satisfaction from electronic contact tools like texting and mobile apps. The highest scores for health plans, which were separated by region, were awarded to Kaiser Permanente, Humana Inc., Anthem, Inc., Geisinger Health Plan and several Blue Cross Blue Shield affiliates.