Latest Blogs
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Kim and Todd Saxton: Go for the gold! But maybe not every time.
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Q&A: What you need to know about the CDC’s new mask guidance
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Carmel distiller turns hand sanitizer pivot into a community fundraising platform
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Lebanon considering creating $13.7M in trails, green space for business park
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Local senior-living complex more than doubles assisted-living units in $5M expansion
No way out for employers on health benefits
Last week’s Supreme Court ruling upholding the tax credits for Obamacare is just the latest in a string of developments that have kept employers from ditching their group health plans, as many predicted they would.
Supreme Court’s Obamacare ruling is a win for Republicans—they just can’t see it
For at least 20 years, Republicans have been pushing for giving tax credits to help individuals buy health insurance. The Supreme Court’s latest Obamacare ruling does Republicans the favor of preserving them.
Cigna: Anthem’s baggage makes marriage risky
Cigna said Anthem’s a risky bet due to fallout from its massive data breach, lawsuits that accuse it of conspiring to inflate prices, and lack of a growth strategy. But Wall Street thinks this deal is going to happen, unless Cigna can find another buyer.
No 1,000-percent markups at Indy’s hospitals
But hospitals’ list prices in Indiana are more than three times what the federal Medicare program pays.
Buying Cigna would give 60 percent of Hoosier health insurance market to Anthem
If Anthem merged with Cigna Corp. it would create a behemoth with even greater negotiating power, which could benefit employers but hurt doctors and hospitals.
If Supremes gut Obamacare’s tax credits, the fixes are easy. But the politics are hard.
The Obama administration could write a new regulation. Congress could pass a short law. States could run a low-cost exchange. But the politics might require all parties to let the tax credits die while they try to pin the blame on the other side.
Fate of Eli Lilly’s potential $2B blockbuster insulin hangs on side effects
Lilly’s basal insulin peglispro proved more effective than the $7 billion blockbuster Lantus at controlling diabetics’ blood sugar, but it also had greater effect on patients’ livers and hearts. Analysts are unsure of its future.
State readies $2M ad campaign to show off HIP replacement
The new version of the Healthy Indiana Plan, backed by Obamacare funding, has enrolled 229,000 new participants in four months without breaking stride.
Why Anthem could spend $34 billion to buy health insurer Humana
Wall Street analysts say a purchase of Louisville-based Humana Inc., which reportedly has put itself up for sale, would by Indianapolis-based Anthem. An Anthem-Humana marriage would be the biggest merger in the history of U.S. health insurance.
The top-paid doctors at Indy’s hospitals
It took $394,000 to rank in the top 1 percent of U.S. earners in 2013. And more than 100 of the Indiana contingent in that exclusive club were physicians employed by one of the four major hospital systems that operate in the Indianapolis area.
How Indy’s hospitals kept chugging through that terrible year of 2013
The individual hospital campuses around Indianapolis saw their collective revenue rise 8 percent and their collective operating profits rise 22 percent from from 2011 to 2013. That’s solid, just not stellar, growth.
Health insurers press gas on value-based payments
In Indiana, Anthem has struck accountable care organization deals with 14 health care provider groups and signed up nearly 2,900 primary care providers to its medical home program. And it’s pushing for more in the future.
The price we pay for diabetes
For employer health plans, diabetics generate $10,000 more per year in medical bills than non-diabetics. That means the rise in the prevalence of diabetes over the past 25 years is costing Hoosiers an extra $2.6 billion annually.
Anthem’s brand suffers small ding from data breach
Anthem Inc.’s brand has taken a noticeable hit since a massive data breach earlier this year, but the impact was blunted by positive perceptions of the way the company handled the breach.
Hoosier hospitals save $22M by sparing patients harm
That’s less than one-tenth of 1 percent of what Hoosiers and their health plans spend on hospital care each year. But it’s a step in the right direction.
Moody’s likes what it sees at Community
Hospital system tripled its profit last year by wooing patients to its physicians, trimming hospital and clinical staff by more than 400. The rating agency Moody’s says things look even better in 2015.
Health Department report: Nurse staffing was short at IU Health Methodist
A Health Department audit found nurse staffing routinely short on two patient units at IU Health’s Methodist hospital, where nurses are trying to organize a union.
Radiologists follow FedEx with flat-rate prices. Is this the future of health care?
To satisfy patients with high-deductible health plans, Northwest Radiology has introduced flat-rate pricing for its imaging scans. It’s a centuries-old concept among postal services, but for health care, it’s revolutionary.