Healthcare Finance Staff

Here's a tangled web: It appears that some of the federal government's profit-loss payments to insurers are at once obligated and prohibited.

United Healthcare's shopping spree continues, as it acquires a Texas company with practice management, revenue cycle, physician referral management and other ambulatory-focused technology.

The traditional health insurance business model is on the verge of a cataclysmic shift toward individual consumers. While that will require moving away from the old IT running within many payers, it also makes now a great time for reinvention, venture capitalists argue, if not the only opportunity.

Health insurer spending on treatment for painkiller dependence is on the rise, and proving to be one of several tools needed to curb the epidemic of opioid addiction.

Health insurers are betting on value-based payments, broadly defined, but providers still seem skittish.

Don't rule out chaos for next year's ICD-10 deadline, or maybe plan on it, if the latest readiness research is any indication. 

Rethinking how it acquires information technologies seems to be giving one insurer an edge, letting it eke out a "trifecta" of lower costs, fewer unhappy customers, and increased revenue.

Network adequacy concerns are starting to generate renewed interest in new health plan provider mandates.

The parallels between the nation's ICD-10 switch and the popular fantasy epic are real.

Advances in molecular and genomic technology are creating a maze of new options for payers and patients replete with quite a few meaningful improvements as well as some dead ends.