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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
Did Congress just kick off another wave of doc mergers?
Things got quiet after a wave of hospital systems' acquiring physician practices swept through central Indiana from 2008 to 2011. But a new wave could start now that Congress passed the "doc fix" last week.
Paying for low value
A recent ranking of health care value in all 50 states puts Indiana in the basement. By my rough figures, working-age Hoosiers are paying a couple billions dollars extra for their health care.
Anthem’s offer that hospitals can’t refuse
By subtly threatening the loss of patients via a new “reference lab network,” the Indianapolis-based health insurer has persuaded 63 Indiana hospitals to slash their prices for blood and tissue testing by as much as 80 percent—beyond the discounts Anthem had already negotiated with them.
Hoosiers shopped around before picking Obamacare exchange coverage
One-third of Indiana’s buyers on Obamacare exchanges were new to their health plans this year—tying Indiana for sixth among the 37 states using the federal exchange.
Franciscan, poster child for Obamacare, sees 2014 profits surge fivefold
After cutting staff sharply in 2013, Franciscan enjoyed more revenue and big profits in 2014. The key question for its and other hospitals’ future is whether they can keep up these gains in productivity to handle looming payment cuts from Obamacare.
Killing obesity without coercion
Top-down culture change only works in North Korea, says the head of a group of local CEOs that is working broadly and subtly, not tyrannically, to improve Indy’s culture of eating and exercising.
Cheapest Obamacare plan stealing exchange customers from Anthem
A sleepy season for Obamacare sign-ups will end on Sunday will overall enrollment almost exactly where insurers predicted it would be. But low-priced plans, such as Ohio-based CareSource, have scooped up far more customers than expected.
The Billion Dollar Decision
When the U.S. Supreme Court hands down its ruling on Obamacare’s tax credits, it could zap nearly $1 billion from Hoosiers’ finances. In fact, Hoosiers buyers on Obamacare’s exchanges have more to lose, as a percentage of their incomes, than the residents of all states other than Alaska and Mississippi.
CEO Roundup: We’re not your father’s health care company anymore
The CEOs of Anthem, Lilly, Zimmer and Hill-Rom tried to woo investors at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference by stressing how they’re broadening business beyond plain-old insurance, pharmaceuticals, implants and hospital beds.
We’re at tipping point of health care becoming a real marketplace
Nearly half of all Hoosier workers covered by employer health plans are now enrolled in high-deductible, consumer-directed health plans, according to a new survey. That means the state is about to pass the point of no return on transforming health care into a real marketplace.
Hoosier hospitals create new tool to help health care shoppers
Recognizing that more and more Hoosier patients are trying to shop for health care, the Indiana Hospital Association has created a web tool with price and quality information for all hospitals around the state. But bigger changes to the health care system will be needed before consumers have the kind of information they expect in other industries.
The moving target bedeviling attempts to cut health care costs
In health care, 5 percent of patients account for 50 percent of costs. Trouble is, those patients aren’t the same from year to year. Not even close.
Regrets of ending an employer health plan
This spring, Keith Pitzele ended his company’s health plan and sent his workers to the Obamacare exchange. It was a bumpy experience he’s glad he won’t have to repeat next year. Does that mean most employers won’t follow suit?
Obamacare’s Cadillac tax forcing Indiana employers to tap brakes on health benefits
No Hoosier employers want to pay Obamacare’s 40 percent excise tax on health benefits, which hits in 2018. So they are embracing high-deductible plans and putting more responsibility for health care spending on workers.
Data show 1 in 5 uninsured Hoosiers gained health coverage this year
Even without Medicaid expansion, Obamacare appears to have substantially reduced the more than 900,000 Hoosiers that go without health insurance during a year.