Health Plan Weekly

With IPO Talk, Telehealth Buy, Startup’s Future May Be Bright With Chart: Bright Health’s Membership, at a Glance

After 2020 proved to be a banner year for initial public offerings, three separate startup health insurers — Alignment Healthcare, Clover Health and Oscar Health — rode the wave and launched IPOs in the early mo...
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UnitedHealth Expects Pent-Up Care to Return Later in ’21

UnitedHealth Group began the first quarter of 2021 on a high note, reporting earnings per share (EPS) and a medical loss ratio (MLR) that both beat the Wall Street consensus estimate and saying it expects to achieve...
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MedSupp Presents Disruption Opportunity for MA Plans

Medicare beneficiaries who shopped and made a coverage change during this last Annual Election Period (AEP) were more likely to stick with their current insurer than in years past, illustrating the dual need for ins...
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News Briefs

✦ Enrollment in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) grew by 10.8% between February and November 2020 to approximately 78 million, according to an issue brief by the Kaiser Family Foundati...
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With New Subsidies, Holdout States May Expand Medicaid

With the passage of the American Rescue Plan (ARP), states that haven’t expanded Medicaid have an extra reason to do so: the COVID-19 relief bill offers financial incentives to states that increase Medicaid eligib...
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Experts Dissect Anesthesiologists’ Suit Against UnitedHealth

UnitedHealthcare is facing a pair of headline-grabbing lawsuits that accuse the country’s largest health insurer of forcing U.S. Anesthesia Partners (USAP) out of its network and then using “unlawful tactics and...
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Study Challenges Cost-Saving Potential of Urgent Care

Although urgent care centers have long been trumpeted as a more economical care option than the emergency department (ED) for non-life-threatening conditions, a new study suggests that health insurers might want to ...
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Health Care Spending Bounces Back, but Still Falls 1% Year Over Year

Although health care utilization started to rebound toward the end of 2020, spending on health care services was down by 1.0% in 2020 compared to 2019, according to a recent analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation....
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Insurers, Feds Move to Promote ACA Special Enrollment Period

Both insurers and the federal government are pushing hard to promote the special enrollment period for the federal health insurance exchange: America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) is launching an online decision...
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