Disease Control

Employer Guide for Dealing with the Coronavirus

Employer Guide for Dealing with the Coronavirus

As the outbreak of the 2019 novel coronavirus gains momentum and potentially begins to spread in North America, employers will have to start considering what steps they can take to protect their workers while fulfilling their legal obligations. Employers are in a...

Reference Pricing Can Reduce Medical Outlays, Costs

Reference Pricing Can Reduce Medical Outlays, Costs

In an effort to coax health plan participants to use price-shopping behavior when deciding on where to have a procedure, more insurers are starting to roll out a system known as “reference pricing.” With reference pricing, the health insurer imposes a limit on the...

Trends Shaping Health Insurance and Health Care in 2020

Trends Shaping Health Insurance and Health Care in 2020

As a new decade begins, the health insurance industry is on the cusp of making a leap towards improved, higher-tech management of health plan participants. A recent paper by Capgemini, an insurance technology and consulting firm, predicts the following trends that...

Congress Eliminates the ‘Cadillac’ and Other ACA Taxes

Congress Eliminates the ‘Cadillac’ and Other ACA Taxes

Congress before the new year passed legislation repealing the so-called “Cadillac tax” on generous group health plans, as well as two other taxes, finally putting to bed an issue that has plagued the Affordable Care Act since its inception. Although it had not yet...

High-Deductible Plans Saddling Workers with Bigger Drug Outlays

High-Deductible Plans Saddling Workers with Bigger Drug Outlays

A new study has found that high-deductible plans and increased use of coinsurance are exposing health plan enrollees to higher and higher pharmaceutical costs. One of the big problems for many enrollees in high-deductible plans is that their outlays for drugs may not...

Telemedicine Taking Off, Reducing Health Costs

Telemedicine Taking Off, Reducing Health Costs

One of the fastest growing parts of the health care system, and which touches significantly on group health plans, is telemedicine. From 2016 to 2017, insurance claims for services rendered via telehealth ― as a percentage of all medical claim lines ― grew 53%...

Court Rules ACA Individual Mandate Unconstitutional

Court Rules ACA Individual Mandate Unconstitutional

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court’s decision that the individual mandate portion of the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional because the penalty was set to zero in 2017. However, the fate of the entire law is still in play after the...

New Rules Allow Employers to Reimburse for Health Premiums

New Rules Allow Employers to Reimburse for Health Premiums

Starting Jan. 1, 2020, employers can establish accounts for their employees to help them pay for individual health insurance policies they purchase, as well as for other health care expenses. A new regulation expands on how health reimbursement accounts can be used....