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 ...
News Briefs
✦ The fate of expanded Medicare benefits, drug pricing provisions and other health care measures included in Senate Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package hung in the balance this week, as Pres...
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 ...
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...
News Briefs
✦ Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. will spend $970 million to acquire a 71% stake in Shields Health Solutions, a specialty pharmacy company. Shields contracts with health systems and hospitals to build and operate on...
News Briefs
✦ Three centrist Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce committee on Sept. 15 voted down language in a bill that would have enabled Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Reps. Scott Peters (Calif.), Kathleen Rice...
News Briefs
✦ CMS will bar several Medicare Advantage Prescription Drug (MA-PD) plans from enrolling new beneficiaries for 2022 because they did not meet minimum medical loss ratio (MLR) requirements. According to a series ...
News Briefs
✦ The Biden administration will send $452 million in ARPA funding “to support 13 states’ efforts to improve access to affordable, comprehensive health insurance coverage through section 1332 state-based reinsu...
News Briefs
✦ The FDA is requiring revisions to the labels of Pfizer Inc.’s Xeljanz/Xeljanz XR (tofacitinib), Eli Lilly and Co.’s Olumiant (baricitinib) and AbbVie Inc.’s Rinvoq (upadacitinib) following the agency’s r...
News Briefs
✦ Consulting and actuarial firm Milliman, Inc. said on Sept. 7 that it has acquired SkySail Rx, a pharmacy benefit technology firm. SkySail specializes in leveraging data to support pharmacy benefit pricing and co...