Reimbursement

Proposed Medicare Part B drug payment models threaten medical practices and patients who are already financially strained due to the price of needed treatment, physicians told a House Energy and Commerce Committee Tuesday.

Payers can combine analytics and personal outreach to effectively engage patients and achieve population health goals.

Insurance rates in Washington State set to increase by an average of 13.5 percent, a figure that the insurance commissioner says comes as no surprise.

The U.S. Supreme Court has sent a case on controversial contraception coverage back to the lower courts for a solution, based on an agreement between the federal government and the religiously-affiliated nonprofit organizations during oral arguments.

During 2014, the first full year of the law's implementation, 91 percent of children who were eligible for Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program were enrolled, according to the study by researchers at the Urban Institute. In 2013, that figure was 88.7 percent and only 81.7 percent in 2008.

The study sought to measure whether having access to such a tool, and with it more price information, was associated with a reduction in annual outpatient spending in the first 12 months after the tool was introduced.

California's health insurance exchange estimates that its Obamacare premiums may rise 8 percent on average next year, which would end two consecutive years of more modest 4 percent increases.

Researchers found that the state mandates -- which apply to coverage available on the individual market and some group and employer plans -- led to about 12 percent more children getting some kind of treatment for autism. But when compared with the number believed to have the condition, it's not nearly enough, they say.

The cost of long-term, in-home care is greatly underestimated, says a new study from insurance holding company Genworth Financial. In fact, most Americans underestimate the cost by close to 50 percent.

In 2014, when Medicaid expansion and the health exchanges were implemented as provisions of the ACA, children's coverage soared over the previous year's numbers, according to the May study done by the Urban Institute with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.