News Briefs
✦ CMS issued guidance stipulating employer-sponsored health plans can’t deny benefits to customers who have not received a COVID-19 vaccine. However, self-funded plans can offer premium discounts to customers ...
Insurer Suits Take Aim at ‘Pay for Delay,’ Copay Assistance
In recently filed lawsuits, major health insurers accuse pharmaceutical companies of engaging in behavior that illegally boosted sales of their products. However, the alleged schemes are very different both in terms...
Colorado Law, a First, Targets Racist Health Care Algorithms
Health plans, always reliant on data, have deepened their focus on quantitative analysis and predictive algorithms in recent years — and experts warn that trend might also embed structural racism in health care ev...
Duals, Minorities Were Hardest Hit by COVID Among Medicare Beneficiaries, CMS Reports
In a preliminary analysis of fee-for-service Medicare claims and Medicare Advantage encounter data from Jan. 1, 2020, to July 24, 2021, CMS reported more than 4.6 million COVID-19 cases and 1.3 million related hospi...
News Briefs
✦ Centene Corp. settled two more of its PBM-related cases, reaching settlements with Illinois and Arkansas’ attorneys general to pay the states more than $71 million combined. Centene has been sued by dozens of ...
JPMorgan’s Health Care Reboot Ditches Disruption for Insiders
JPMorgan Chase Co. has revamped its troubled effort to become a major player in health care by taking an insider approach and staffing its new venture, Morgan Health, with career health care executives — a move th...
Surveys Highlight What Members Want From Health Plans
In recent weeks, rankings and survey results have emerged that seek to answer a timeless question for health insurers: How can plans better serve and engage their members?
While the methodology of these reports v...
How Can Feds, MCOs Make Medicaid Telehealth Use Last?
More and more health care is making a permanent move to the internet following the pandemic-driven virtual care boom — which is a big reason why Medicaid MCOs are doing more to bring telehealth and even broadband ...
News Briefs
✦ Cigna Corp. on Sept. 23 unveiled several shifts in its top executives’ roles. Eric Palmer will become the president and CEO of the company’s Evernorth health services division, and Paul Sanford will occupy t...