Some health insurers are helping business workers in group plans maintain employee benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic, a new survey has found. Social distancing and stay-at-home orders have put the hurt on hundreds of thousands of businesses across the country, which has forced them to reduce employees' hours, furlough them or lay them off. Besides [...]
An ongoing tense relationship between insurers and drug companies is spilling over and hitting enrollees in group health plans, by saddling them with additional out-of-pocket expenses. Some insurers have started adopting copay accumulator programs — sometimes called accumulator adjustment programs — that change the way a patient’s out-of-pocket medication costs are added up (accumulated) when [...]
As a new decade begins, the health insurance industry is on the cusp of making a leap towards improved, higher-tech management of health plan participants. A recent paper by Capgemini, an insurance technology and consulting firm, predicts the following trends that will be taking shape in the health insurance industry and how they may affect [...]
One of the fastest growing parts of the health care system, and which touches significantly on group health plans, is telemedicine. From 2016 to 2017, insurance claims for services rendered via telehealth ― as a percentage of all medical claim lines ― grew 53% nationally, faster than any other avenue of care, according to “FH [...]
After a period of relative stability, the future of the Affordable Care Act has once again been thrown into uncertainty. In a surprise move, the Department of Justice announced that it would not further pursue an appeal of a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor, and instead asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court [...]
Most employers are doing all they can to keep their employees’ health insurance and health care outlays to a minimum. And while most of those efforts are focused on the upfront cost of insurance, co-pays and deductibles, many employers fail to help their employees control the very costs they actually have the most control over [...]
A new study has found that more and more large employers are ditching high-deductible health plans as the job market tightens and they need to boost improve their health insurance offerings to retain and attract talent, and saddle their employees with less of the cost burden. The change is also in response to the increasing [...]
When your medical care provider charges more than your insurance company is willing to reimburse, you may get a bill asking you to pay the difference - a practice called "balance billing." The Trump administration is moving to put a stop to the practice. In a recent White House round table on limiting health care [...]
