Amid Obamacare’s changes, WellPoint keeps old playbook
Even as it tries narrow networks, health insurer is trying to offer more choice of doctors now, but push for lower provider payments later.
Health care regulation
Articles
Franciscan doubles down on accountable care
Franciscan St. Francis Health earned a $6.6 million bonus from the Medicare program for its success at keeping central Indiana patients out of the hospital and the emergency room. So the hospital system will expand its participation in so-called accountable care programs to all its Indiana territories.
Most individuals will pay less, not more, in Obamacare exchanges
Even with premiums doubling from 2012 to 2014, Obamacare’s subsidies will offset premium increases for most Hoosiers buying health insurance via the new federal exchanges.
Get ready to see for-profit religious hospitals
Hospitals already operate like for-profit businesses, but now a financial pinch is making more hospitals join their ranks. Aggressive moves by St. Vincent’s parent organization are just the beginning.
Would Medicaid expansion have saved hospital jobs?
As the Pence administration continues to negotiate with the feds, local hospitals say their recent cuts would not have been changed even if Indiana had expanded its Medicaid program.
Want Cliffs Notes on health reform? Look at Wishard
Soon to change its name to Eskenazi Health, the county-owned hospital in Indianapolis is using a business model that tries to promote patients’ health, rather than merely treat their diseases.
Obama hands employers free play on health insurance
The Obama administration’s one-year delay on enforcement of penalties against employers that fail to offer affordable health insurance gives employers the chance to cancel their benefits for the year and pocket a boatload of cash.
Call the midwife: Doctors, hospitals, patients all guilty of driving up childbirth costs
I can see the business model of the physicians and hospitals at work as they recommend tests of questionable necessity. Yet when it’s my own wife and son, it’s easy to think of a terrible outcome to avert with just one more test.
Physician pay: What goes up must come down
Compensation in the most common physician specialties has been growing much faster than inflation for the past five years. Now, financially squeezed hospitals are set to reverse that trend.
Obamacare rebates total $22.6M in Indiana
Indiana consumers are set to receive rebates that are 59 percent larger this year as Obamacare continues to force health insurers to refund premiums that exceed actual medical claims by more than 20 percent.
WellPoint’s respite from criticism will be short-lived
With recent attention focused on hospital prices, WellPoint and its peers have been enjoying a nice break from their long-running status as Public Enemy No. 1 in the nation’s health care debate. They shouldn’t expect it to last.
Medicare report a fresh threat to local hospital finances
A new recommendation from the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, if enacted, would likely end one of the ways Indianapolis-area hospitals have generated healthy revenue from their recent spree of physician acquisitions.
232,000 Hoosiers hang in balance in Pence-Obama wrangling over Medicaid
New analysis shows Obamacare would cut state’s uninsured rolls 49 percent, compared with just 18 percent if Gov. Mike Pence opts out of a Medicaid expansion.
Hospitals proving themselves wrong about prices
Whenever a new report claims hospitals are charging too much, a stock set of defenses comes out. But hospitals are cutting prices and expenses as we speak, undermining those arguments.
Think again: Why Obama’s disclosure of hospital charges won’t help you
In the first post on my new blog, The Dose, I explain why the recently released Medicare charge data are meaningless for everyone but uninsured patients.
WellPoint jumps after feds reverse Medicare decision
Shares of Indianapolis-based WellPoint rose along with those of other medical insurers Tuesday morning after the U.S. government reversed a decision to cut a key Medicare payment rate, offering them an increase instead.
Governors aside, feds building health care exchanges
The feds may be gaining on GOP governors who've balked at carrying out a key part of the health care overhaul law. Opponents of the law say they won't set up new private health insurance exchanges. But increasingly it's looking like Washington will do it for them.
Health insurers’ anti-fraud bid seeks to ease profit-limit rule
The Obama administration Thursday announced a partnership with the industry in which WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group Inc. and other insurers may try to share more billing data with the government to root out fraud.
Insurance company key to Franciscan-American Health partnership
Hospital system’s health insurance unit has IT infrastructure that will allow physicians to participate in Medicare’s shared savings program.
High court ruling opens Medicaid escape hatch for states
While upholding President Obama’s health care law, the U.S. Supreme Court may have created a way out for states that do not want to expand their Medicaid programs. Whether Indiana decides to opt out remains to be seen.