UnitedHealthcare pulls back from niche
Come January, UnitedHealthcare, the second-largest health insurer in Indiana, will have no major-medical policies to sell to individual Hoosier customers.
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Obama allows customers to keep canceled policies
Bowing to pressure, President Barack Obama on Thursday announced changes to his health care law to give insurance companies the option to keep offering consumers plans that would otherwise be canceled.
Pence’s Obamacare angst may cost state
Even though Obamacare will raise various taxes to subsidize the cost of expanding health insurance coverage, Indiana might say no to all its new funding, to the tune of $1.2 billion per year. That also means the state would say no to a reduction by more than half of the 810,000 Hoosiers that go without health insurance for a time each year.
State: It’ll be Christmas before we can talk to Obamacare website
Indiana officials don’t expect HealthCare.gov to be able to share individual account information with the state’s Medicaid computer systems until the end of the year.
How Obamacare is affecting employers
Indiana companies are planning different methods to adapt to the health care landscape next year.
Health law fuels modest rise in costs
It’s long been known that Obamacare would make health benefits more expensive for most employers. Now, it’s finally becoming clearer by how much: about 9 percent, on average, according to a series of actuarial studies.
Indiana’s insurance exchanges are pricey
The premiums offered by health insurers participating in the Obamacare exchanges put Indiana among the 10 most-expensive states in the country, according to data released last month by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
State, schools sue U.S. government over Obamacare
Fifteen Indiana school districts and the state of Indiana have filed a lawsuit challenging the federal health care law and subsidies that are available to Hoosiers under rules set by the IRS.
Anthem prez: Expect ‘crickets chirping’ on Oct. 1
Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield President Rob Hillman expects a slow start to the Obamacare exchanges, with fewer than one-third of uninsured people buying coverage there.
Insurance rates set for Indiana, other states under exchanges
With new health insurance markets launching next week, the Obama administration is unveiling premiums for 36 states, including Indiana, where the federal government is taking the lead to cover uninsured residents.
Anthem rolls out new bonus system for docs
The Indianapolis-based health insurer expects to pay, on average, $3.50 per month for every patient enrolled in one of Anthem’s commercial health plans.
Analysis: Obamacare exchanges will push Anthem’s premiums lower
Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Indiana expects the average premiums it charges on the health insurance exchanges being created by Obamacare to be about $60 per year less for each of its health plan members than they would have been without the law.
Board suggested busy Evans let go of AIT
Michael Evans was juggling two companies and two newborn twins when his board of directors suggested it was time for a new CEO of AIT Laboratories. He was replaced by venture capitalist Matt Neff on Monday.
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.
WellPoint rolls out program with cost ceilings for procedures
Under so-called reference-based benefits, insured patients would have to pay the difference between procedure prices and maximums set by their employers. Several Indiana companies are considering using the tactic.
Feds mull covering Alzheimer’s test that uses Lilly’s Amyvid
The $3,000 test for the first time accurately identifies the signature brain plaques of the debilitating disease.
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.
New WellPoint CEO Joe Swedish thrives on complexity
Joe Swedish, a career hospital executive, is now two months into his job at the helm of Indianapolis-based WellPoint, the nation’s second-largest health insurer. In his first interview since starting work, Swedish indicated he’s taking his time to learn the people and the culture of the vast organization he now leads.
Study rebuts hospitals’ argument on Medicare, rising costs
Rather than raising prices on private health insurers to make up for inadequate payments from the government, hospitals across the country have been raising prices just because they can, according to a new study.
IU Health to chop $1 billion off costs
Even though Obamacare likely will expand health insurance coverage to an extra 500,000 Hoosiers over the next few years, IU Health expects per-patient reimbursements to fall as the federal government, employers and patients all push back on sky-high health care costs.