Chasing The Stars, Insurers Improve Quality — And Revenue
Only a handful of Medicare Advantage plans win five stars for quality. But the bonuses attached to the federal rating system are reshaping the competitive landscape for insurers.
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Only a handful of Medicare Advantage plans win five stars for quality. But the bonuses attached to the federal rating system are reshaping the competitive landscape for insurers.
Jackie Judd talks with KHN's Mary Agnes Carey about the latest in talks around the "super committee's" efforts to cut the deficit. Advocates and lawmakers are busy whispering what health programs should be shielded from cuts and which should be on the chopping block.
Jackie Judd talks with KHN's Mary Agnes Carey about the latest in talks around the super committee's efforts to cut the deficit. Advocates and lawmakers are busy whispering what health programs should be shielded from cuts and which should be on the chopping block.
Star ratings are bleeding into bottom lines, board rooms and corporate strategy as Medicare Advantage plans chase top scores.
Advances in treatment, including new drugs and high-tech procedures, can be costly, even for those with insurance.
Oncologists often overlook therapies that can ease the debilitating effects of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy and insurance plans frequently limit coverage.
But it's unlike the online marketplace required by the federal health law and draws only tepid support from health plans and insurance agents.
The Department of Health and Human Services now must decide what benefits should be required in policies sold through insurance exchanges beginning in 2014.
Federal officials note that minorities and low-income Americans continue to have less access to health care even as the country makes improvements in life expectancy and lowering death rates related to several conditions.
The prospects for this voluntary long-term care insurance program appear increasingly complicated.
Jackie Judd talks with KHN's Julie Appleby about recommendations an Institute of Medicine panel will make to help the Department of Health and Human Services determine just what "essential benefits" insurers will have to cover in health law-mandated marketplaces.
Jackie Judd talks with KHN's Julie Appleby about recommendations an Institute of Medicine panel will make to help the Department of Health and Human Services determine just what "essential benefits" insurers will have to cover in health law-mandated marketplaces.
The Methodist Le Bonheur system and about 400 churches work together to make sure church members have social support when they go into the hospital and when they come out.
The new system will move many state residents into a publicly financed insurance program and pay hospitals and doctors a set fee to care for patients.
An annual survey has found that the average cost of a family health insurance plan rose 9 percent this year - triple the growth rate seen in 2010. KHN's Julie Appleby filed this story.
These pediatricians say they are worried about other patients in the waiting room, some of them too young to be immunized or with health problems that compromise their immune systems.
Six months after the state ended the adultBasic health coverage, only about 40 percent of the enrollees went to Medicaid or a limited benefit plan opened to them.
As federal officials draw up their list of requirements for essential health benefits under the overhaul, it's not clear whether they will include treatment mandates passed by many states.
KHN's Mary Agnes Carey and ABC News' Ariane de Vogue discuss today's oral arguments in the American Center for Law and Justice challenge to the health law.
The same pattern that has emerged in health insurance -- employers' shifting more costs onto workers' shoulders -- is occurring in disability coverage.
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