Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
New CVS Hire Signals Company's Interest In Providing Medical Services Directly To Consumers
Bloomberg: CVS Hires Doctor From Health Startup In Sign Of Medical Ambition
CVS Health Corp. is hiring a senior executive from a startup that specializes in primary-care clinics, a sign that the drugstore chain is serious about providing more medical services directly to consumers as it moves toward acquiring health insurer Aetna Inc. Marc-David Munk will become CVS’s chief medical officer for its MinuteClinics, and will oversee “expanded health-care services across the CVS Health enterprise,” the pharmacy and drug-benefits manager said in a statement Friday. Munk was previously chief medical officer at Iora Health, a startup that operates about two dozen physician practices. (Tracer, 4/13)
In other industry news —
The Star Tribune: UnitedHealth Pushes Back In Whistleblower Case
UnitedHealth Group is pushing back against a federal whistleblower case, alleging the Justice Department’s arguments would mean the agency that runs the federal Medicare program has broken its contract with the giant health insurance company. In early 2017, the federal government joined a whistleblower lawsuit from a former UnitedHealth Group employee in the Twin Cities who alleged, among other things, that the nation’s largest insurer had wrongly received excess Medicare revenue by reviewing medical charts to boost payments without also making data corrections that would have saved the government money. (Snowbeck, 4/14)
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Direct Primary Care: A New Solution For Rising Health Care Costs?
There’s a new movement going on in primary and family care medicine that could deliver better care, cheaper prices and more personalized attention to health care consumers — all while cutting the insurance middle man out of the equation. (Thimou, 4/12)
