Although telehealth policies that were put in place in March 2020 following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic are set to expire at the end of the year, congressional leaders are taking steps to extend the policies for an additional two years. Even if the legislation passes, more research needs to be done to assess the benefits and downsides of treating people virtually from a payer, provider and patient perspective, according to speakers at a May 1 panel organized by the National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM) Foundation.

The House Ways and Means Committee on May 8 unanimously advanced legislation that would preserve Medicare beneficiaries’ access to telehealth through 2026. Reps. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) and Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) are sponsors of bill H.R. 8261, which is known as the Preserving Telehealth, Hospital, and Ambulance Access Act.

California recently became the latest state to implement a limit on health care spending growth, with a new state agency targeting an increase of no greater than 3% by 2029. Commercial payers have largely backed the spending targets, but providers have argued that the targets aren’t reachable and Medicaid stakeholders — including the state’s largest managed care organization — are concerned that the target may curtail access for beneficiaries and harm the solvency of safety net providers.

The spending target was set by the board of the Office of Health Care Affordability (OHCA), which was established in 2022. The board’s membership was appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat. The board set target spending growth rates of 3.5% in 2025 and 2026, 3.2% in 2027 and 2028, and 3.0% in 2029. OHCA will require payers regulated by the state and providers alike to meet the designated spending targets. Organizations that don't meet the spending targets will be subject to a state-overseen corrective action plan and possibly fines.

People with health savings account-eligible high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) use less outpatient services and fill fewer prescription medications than people with PPOs, but HSA plan enrollment appears to have no impact on total health care spending, according to a recent study published by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).

As of 2022, 57.9% of employees were enrolled in an HSA-eligible health plan, while 32.3% of them were in an HDHP that was not associated with an HSA.

Higher-than-expected medical loss ratios (MLRs) in Medicaid were a common — albeit minor — pain point for both Centene Corp. and Molina Healthcare, Inc. when the companies reported their first-quarter 2024 financial results.

Centene, which reported its quarterly results on April 26, recorded an MLR of 90.9% for its Medicaid line of business, which was higher (worse) than the Wall Street consensus estimate of 90.3%.

Chief Financial Officer Andrew Asher said during the company’s earnings call that the figure was “a little higher in the quarter than we expected as we continue to work through the appropriate matching of rates and acuity in the short-term.”

If providers charged the same price as specialty pharmacies for specialty medications, $13.1 billion in spending on health insurance premiums and premium equivalents could have been avoided in 2024, according to a new analysis from the consulting firm Oliver Wyman, commissioned by AHIP.

Provider-administered drugs can be delivered directly to clinicians from specialty pharmacies — known as white bagging — or providers can purchase the drugs directly and store the drugs until they are needed for patient care, which is called “buy and bill.” When the “buy and bill” method is utilized, the providers can charge a markup for the drug that is passed through to the patient’s bill.

Although Humana Inc. beat Wall Street’s expectations with its first-quarter 2024 earnings per share (EPS), the recently finalized 2025 Medicare Advantage and Part D rate notice nonetheless cast a shadow over the insurer’s longer-term financial projections and thus dimmed analysts’ enthusiasm.

In fact, Humana withdrew its 2025 EPS guidance of $6 to $10, with CEO Bruce Broussard partially blaming the move on the “significant difference between the final rate notice and our previous funding assumption.”

When CMS on April 1 released its final rate projection for MA and Part D plans, the agency said it anticipates plans will see a net revenue increase of 3.70% next year. But that figure did not improve compared to the projected rate increase — despite the industry’s urging — and it represents a 0.16% payment decrease excluding the assumption that MA risk scores will increase by an average of 3.86%. 

If providers charged the same price as specialty pharmacies for specialty medications, $13.1 billion in spending on health insurance premiums and premium equivalents could have been avoided in 2024, according to a new analysis from the consulting firm Oliver Wyman, commissioned by AHIP.

Provider-administered drugs can be delivered directly to clinicians from specialty pharmacies — known as white bagging — or providers can purchase the drugs directly and store the drugs until they are needed for patient care, which is called “buy and bill.” When the “buy and bill” method is utilized, the providers can charge a markup for the drug that is passed through to the patient’s bill.

One week before the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review released a white paper laying out ways to manage ultra-high-cost gene therapies, ICER President and CEO Sarah Emond shared frank views about the consequences that result when medications are priced far higher than they need to be.

“We’re making tradeoff decisions all the time,” Emond said during an April 16 presentation at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy annual conference in New Orleans. “Anyone who thinks that we are not rationing care in the United States is not paying attention. It has a lot to do with how good your health insurance is and how much money you have.”

A 2022 New Mexico law eliminating in-network mental health and substance use disorder (SUD) treatment copayments, coinsurances and deductibles in plans regulated by the state led to a significant decline in out-of-pocket spending for prescriptions treating those conditions, according to a recent JAMA Health Forum study. However, early results showed that the number of prescriptions dispensed did not change in the six months after New Mexico’s No Behavioral Cost-Sharing (NCS) rule went into effect.

Samantha J. Harris, Ph.D., one of the study’s authors, tells AIS Health that the NCS is “really groundbreaking” in that it’s the first state law to eliminate cost-sharing for mental health and SUD treatments. She adds that “as people are looking at the next frontier of mental health or health care financing, this is an exciting policy option,” although she notes that “it remains to be seen whether it’s going to impact utilization of services [and] whether this is going to improve overall health and well-being.”

A panel of experts will recommend in a formal report to Congress that ground ambulance-related balance bills should be settled using a rate-setting benchmark rather than arbitration, according to one member of the panel; in addition, the report will recommend that Medicare should begin to cover care that is delivered by ambulance personnel but does not result in a hospital transport. The report is under review by CMS, and is expected to kick off another battle on Capitol Hill over surprise billing policy.

Balance or surprise billing generally occurs when a person unwittingly receives care from an out-of-network provider and is then billed by that provider for whatever balance remains after insurance reimbursement. According to a member of the panel, the report will recommend that balance bills for ground ambulance care should be banned in virtually all circumstances, including emergency transports to a hospital, interfacility transports and care delivered by EMTs in the field that does not result in a transport to a hospital.