The COVID-19 pandemic has led to increased demand to bring care to patients’ homes, whether that be virtually or through in-home care services. (Photo: Shutterstock) Consumers in more than 20 additional cities will have access to in-person Amazon Care in 2022. Several major metropolitan areas, including San Francisco, Miami, […]
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Nearly two years into the COVID-19 pandemic , 2021 has been another year that has tested both employees and employers in spades. The emergence of the COVID vaccines (and the issues that surround vaccine policies), declining employee mental health, safety concerns, work/life balance issues and more have undoubtedly challenged […]
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Mental health providers are seeking an exemption from the “good faith” estimates for routine mental and behavioral health services. (Photo: Shutterstock) Groups representing a range of mental health therapists say a new law that protects people from surprise medical bills puts providers in an ethical bind and could discourage some patients from care.
The therapists take no issue with the main aim of the legislation, which is to prevent patients from being blindsided by bills, usually for treatment received from out-of-network medical providers who work at in-network facilities. Instead, they are concerned about another part of the law — a price transparency provision — that requires most licensed medical practitioners to give patients detailed upfront cost estimates, including a diagnosis, and information about the length and costs involved in a typical course of treatment. That’s unfitting for mental health care, they say, because diagnoses can take time and sometimes change over the course of treatment. […]
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The CMS also wants to stop insurers from using expenses not directly related to quality improvement to inflate their MLRs. (Photo: Shutterstock) A proposed rule from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services could change provider compensation and accelerate the adoption of value-based contracts , Modern Healthcare reported . […]
Provider bonuses included as incurred claims in insurers’ medical loss ratios must be explicitly tied to quality or clinical improvement standards under the December proposal. CMS also recommended that only spending directly related to quality improvement count toward insurers’ quality improvement claims in their ratio.
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In this article ABT-0.36 (-0.28%) watch now Leahannah Taylor graduated from Rutgers University with a master’s degree in biomedical sciences — and $59,000 in student debt — in 2019. She’s now debt-free. It took her less than two years to wipe out her student loan balances, she said, thanks to an enticing incentive offered by her employer.
“My strategy was to attack the debt,” said Taylor, 27, a clinical specialist for the medical devices company Abbott. “I wanted to be in the black as soon as possible.”
Using her employer benefit, Leahannah Taylor was able to pay off her student loan debt and save for retirement.
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Billionaire and Mavericks owners Mark Cuban has opened up an online pharmacy offering prescription drugs at cheaper prices. Their strategy behind offering lower prices to consumers is to “bypass middlemen and outrageous markups,” according to a press release by the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company.
In its press release, the company pointed out medications on its site that offer significant savings. For example, Imatinib, a drug used to treat leukemia has a retail price of $9,657 per month and a price of $120 per month with a voucher, whereas MCCPDC offers it for $47 per month, according to the press release.
Other drugs with savings include Mesalamine, an ulcerative colitis treatment, and Colchicine, a gout treatment, according to MCCPDC.
The company’s goal is to bring transparency to the drug pricing market and show consumers the wholesale price behind a drug.
More specifically, MCCPDC eliminates the fee paid to pharmacists, pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers that negotiate contracts with different stakeholders in the healthcare arena. […]
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Facebook announced last year that it was committed to putting $10 billion into the virtual world: its metaverse division. And last week, news broke that Microsoft was nearing a $70 billion deal to buy Activision Blizzard, the video game publisher of World of Warcraft and other top-selling games.
It’s clear that the metaverse — a new virtual reality sector that reimagines the internet as a 3D experience that users can be a part of — is being hyped by tech titans as the future of the internet, but what does it mean for the future of healthcare?
The COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a new healthcare consumer conditioned to home delivery of medicines and receiving healthcare online through telehealth visits (including Medicare recipients). In what I’m calling the “medaverse,” a new mode of communication in health and the healthcare market will shift how patients interact with providers, receive information and care, and buy products and services. […]
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healthcare benefits While the new year feels like a fresh start for most workers, it’s also expected to come with a spike in health insurance premiums. Premiums and deductibles have been steadily increasing for years. The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) found that premiums for a family rose 4% in […]
While the new year feels like a fresh start for most workers, it’s also expected to come with a spike in health insurance premiums. Premiums and deductibles have been steadily increasing for years. The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) found that premiums for a family rose 4% in 2021, according to a survey focused on employer-sponsored benefits.
The average family pays $22,221 in premiums, according to KFF. Workers contributed $5,969 toward their coverage, while employers paid the rest. In fact, since 2011 the average family premiums have increased 47%, which KFF found was more than wages (31%) and inflation (19%).
Not only is this a financial hardship for American families, but it’s also draining companies that are struggling to maintain employee coverage. To complicate the matter, several federal programs providing support for healthcare are due to expire in 2022.
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