Reimbursement

Healthcare juggernaut Kaiser Permanente announced Friday they have inked a deal to acquire the Seattle-based Group Health Cooperative in a deal that will expand Kaiser's reach by roughly 509,000 members and add an entirely new region of coverage.

Though the outgoing governor of Kentucky and other supporters of the president's Affordable Care Act have been critical of a pledge made by incoming governor Matt Bevin to abolish the state exchange in favor of switching to the federal marketplace, his plan may have little effect on consumers.

One in three family physicians are actively pursuing a move to value-based payment and an additional 19 percent are developing the capabilities for it, a new study sponsored by Humana and conducted by the American Academy of Family Physicians has found.

Though the outgoing governor of Kentucky and other supporters of the president's Affordable Care Act have been critical of a pledge made by incoming governor Matt Bevin to abolish the state exchange in favor of switching to the federal marketplace, his plan may have little effect on consumers.

Forty-five percent of the silver-level PPO plans coming to the market for the first time in 2016 provide no annual cap for policyholders' out-of-network costs, an analysis by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation finds.

With just two weeks left in 2015's open enrollment period, close to 395 thousand consumers either signed up for or renewed health insurance coverage during week four November 22-28, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Forty-five percent of the silver-level PPO plans coming to the market for the first time in 2016 provide no annual cap for policyholders' out-of-network costs, an analysis by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation finds.

The letter is an effort to continue limiting the amount of assistance insurers can obtain from the government to lessen losses they sustain under the Affordable Care Act.

Women in Medicaid expansion states are far more likely to get screened for breast cancer, according to a new study by the Radiological Society of North America, which released the results at its annual meeting on Monday.

From 2010 to 2014, there's been 2.1 million fewer hospital-acquired conditions; 87,000 fewer hospital-acquired condition related deaths; and $19.8 billion in costs have been averted, according to CMS Deputy Director Patrick Conway.