Despite its low cost of living, Indianapolis is among the highest-priced areas for hospital services for patients with private health insurance—and is far more costly than Boston, Chicago, Manhattan and Los Angeles, according to a new study.
Anthem touts program saving $9.51 per patient per month—but passes on less than half the savings to hospitals and doctors.
UnitedHealthcare, MDwise, IU Health Plans and Assurant all disclosed losses during the first nine months of this year on the policies they are selling on the federal marketplace created by the Affordable Care Act.
Profits and patient visits remain strong at Community Health Network and Indiana University Health, but their Obamacare-fueled growth is decelerating.
The Indianapolis-based hospital system said its efforts to reduce patients’ need for expensive health care services, known as population health, slashed the use of hospitals, nursing homes and expensive imaging scans among the 140,000 Hoosiers IU Health now serves.
The Indianapolis-based law firm opened two new offices this fall—in Dallas and Seattle—and has now added five new offices in the past 24 months, as it tries to keep up with consolidation among hospitals and doctors.
Spending on prescription drugs has soared 451 percent this year at Indianapolis-based MDwise as new drugs for hepatitis C and cancer soar above $100,000 per patient.
Bryan Mills, CEO of the Community Health Network hospital system, said a recent pickup in health care construction could slow down if providers can successfully care for patients remotely via the Internet and phones.
A 22-page timeline of events leading up to the $54 billion merger agreement between Anthem and Cigna shows that company executives fell in love early, but the Anthem board made them break up and they chased other lovers. But in the end, they were each other’s only choice.
A flood of money from Obamacare—for the expanded Healthy Indiana Plan and for private health insurance purchased on the federal exchange—is boosting revenue and profit among Indiana health insurers.
CEO Bryan Mills has set a goal to make 75 percent of revenue—or $1.5 billion a year—be covered by value-based contracts—which means Community would be rewarded for keeping patients out of the hospital. A new venture is Mills’ strategy to get there.
A recent study found the number of health insurers offering broad provider networks on the Obamacare exchange was higher than in all but 10 other states and suggests that so long as Hoosiers keep singing “Don’t Fence Me In,” they could keep paying more for health insurance.
Profits at most county-owned hospitals have grown by 100 percent to 400 percent over the past four years via partnerships with nursing homes that have brought in hundreds of millions of dollars in extra federal money.
With this year’s bill estimated at $37 billion and counting, perhaps the sheer cost of cleaning up after IT security breaches at health care organizations will spur the industry to find a bandage for its hemorrhaging computer systems.
Anthem turned out unheard of gains in 2014, the first year of Obamacare’s new health insurance overhaul, as Anthem’s customers numbers held steady but their spending with hospitals and doctors plummeted.
The CEOs of Eli Lilly and Anthem are being rewarded by investors for taking high-risk approaches to develop breakthrough drugs, make major acquisitions.
With Anthem and IU Health so hot to trot their anti-smoking bona fides, it’s surprising their responses to The New York Times' stories about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce blocking anti-smoking policies overseas have been so tepid.
The money, known as reinsurance payments, helped MDwise, Anthem, Humana, Assurant and the Physicians Health Plan of Northern Indiana keep a lid on their losses even as lots of new patients with expensive or untreated medical conditions migrated into the private insurance market.
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.
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.
