The nation's second-largest health insurance company has officially changed its corporate name from WellPoint Inc. to Anthem Inc. The Indianapolis-based insurer's stock starts trading Wednesday under the ticker symbol ANTM.
In the case of Anthem, 12.5 percent of doctors were not at the address listed for them, while 12.8 percent were not willing to accept the health plans purchased on the exchange.
Indianapolis-based WellPoint saw its shares close July 9 at $110.87 per share, compared with less than $85 just five months ago.
Companies around Indianapolis—especially small ones without their own IT teams—are still trying to determine how or even if they were affected by the confounding Internet security gap.
Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc.provides managed care health benefit plans to employers and self-funded customers.
Most Americans are avoiding the lowest-priced health plans on the Obamacare insurance exchanges, taking advantage of government subsidies to seek more protection against high treatment costs.
Positive results from a Phase 2 trial in patients convinced Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. to reacquire an experimental migraine medicine, which goes by the name LY2951742. Lilly aims to conduct a Phase 3 trial, the last stage of testing before it can submit the drug for market approval. The drug was licensed from Lilly in 2011 by Massachusetts-based Arteaus Therapeutics, a company formed at the same time by venture capital firms OrbiMed and Atlas Venture. Lilly did not disclose the financial terms of its deal with Arteaus. However, Lilly will record a fourth-quarter charge of $57.1 million to reflect the reacquisition costs and Lilly’s assumption of ongoing development expenses of the drug. The drug is one of nine experimental drugs Lilly has licensed to outside firms as a way to share the risk of research and development costs. Lilly calls the risk-sharing arrangement with venture capital firms its Capital Funds Portfolio. The migraine medicine is the first one Lilly has reacquired from a participating venture-backed company.
Eli Lilly and Co. needs new drugs to patch a larger-than-expected hole in its revenue. On Jan. 7, the Indianapolis-based drugmaker revised its 2014 revenue forecast. Instead of its longstanding prediction of $20 billion in revenue, Lilly now expects to bring in between $19.2 billion and $19.8 billion. Wall Street analysts expected $19.6 billion, according to 17 estimates compiled by Bloomberg News. Revenue is falling at Lilly after its U.S. patents on antidepressant Cymbalta expired in December. Cymbalta generated $4.99 billion in 2012, but analysts expect its sales to plummet to $1.43 billion this year, according to Bloomberg. Also in March, Lilly will lose patent protection on its osteoporosis drug Evista. Analysts expect Evista sales to drop to $498.6 million this year from nearly $1 billion annually before. Lilly expects its 2014 profit to range between $2.77 and $2.85 per share. Analysts anticipated $2.78.
WellPoint Inc. plans to unwind one of the deals Angela Braly made late in her troubled tenure as CEO of the Indianapolis-based health insurer. WellPoint agreed to sell online contact lens retailer 1-800-Contacts to Boston-based private equity firm Thomas H. Lee Partners LP. WellPoint will also sell Glasses.com, a subsidiary of 1-800-Contacts, to Milan-based Luxottica Group SpA. WellPoint’s new CEO, Joe Swedish, said he wants to focus on its core insurance business. “As we prepare for the coming changes to the health-care system, we are focused on our core growth opportunities across both our commercial and government business segments,” Swedish said in the statement. “Proceeds from this transaction will support our continued capital deployment strategies.” WellPoint bought 1-800 Contacts from private equity firm Fenway Partners in June 2012 for about $900 million. The purchase added to investor anger against Braly. She left the company two months later.
The Indiana Family and Social Services Administration announced Friday it will add 3,400 people to the Healthy Indiana Plan, a health insurance program for low-income Hoosiers. That’s the number of Hoosiers who had been among the 50,000 on the program’s waiting list who reapplied and were deemed eligible. But state officials said they expect 20,000 Hoosiers to apply for HIP by the end of this year. The program, which had been running at about 40,000 participants, will have its enrollment capped this year at 45,000. Gov. Mike Pence is negotiating with the Obama administration to use HIP to expand coverage to all Hoosiers with incomes up to 138 percent of the federal poverty limit. For now, HIP participants cannot have incomes above the federal poverty limit, which is $11,490 per adult or $23,550 for a family of four.
The deadline to enroll in plans that begin Jan. 1 now is midnight Tuesday for most of the U.S. On Monday, healthcare.gov fielded nearly 50,000 simultaneous visitors, triggering a queuing system.
Even though St. Louis-based Ascension Health cut nearly 900 jobs this year from its Indianapolis-based hospital subsidiary, St. Vincent Health, it wants to add 549 more to its service center here by 2016. Ascension, the largest Catholic hospital chain in the nation, opened a service center in Indianapolis in June 2011, and has hired 500 people since then. The service center workers perform human resources, purchasing, bill payment and supply chain management for all of Ascension’s hospitals and hundreds of its other health care facilities. As part of the expansion over the next three years, the service center will provide support services to the entire Ascension chain, which includes 150,000 employees at more than 1,900 locations spread over 24 states and Washington, D.C. St. Vincent cut 865 workers at the end of June. The staff cuts, which represented 5 percent of St. Vincent’s total Indiana employment of 17,300, were brought on by lower-than-expected patient volumes, congressional budget cuts and slower-than-expected growth in reimbursement rates. St. Vincent’s announcement was the first of several by Indiana’s largest hospital systems. In October, Indiana University Health eliminated 935 positions. And in October, Franciscan Alliance cut 925 positions. The Indiana Economic Development Corp. offered Ascension up to $4.8 million in conditional tax credits and up to $200,000 in training grants, if Ascension adds all 549 jobs it has promised.
Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, along with most other major insurers, will allow consumers who enroll in health plans through the new Obamacare exchanges 10 extra days to pay their first premiums and still gain coverage effective Jan. 1. That means consumers can wait to make their first payment until as late as Jan. 10. According to Bloomberg News, the Obama administration had asked insurers on Dec. 12 to give customers more time to pay and grant retroactive coverage. A few days of retroactive coverage is common in the health insurance industry. Anthem’s parent company, Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc., will also let current members buy a new plan in the off-exchange individual market as late as Jan. 10 and still be covered retroactive to the first of the year. Many WellPoint and Anthem customers whose individual policies were canceled because the policies did not comply with Obamacare’s new rules, were automatically enrolled in a similar Obamacare-compliant plan off of the exchange. But now Anthem is allowing such customers to choose a different plan by the 10th of each month in either January, February or March.
Eli Lilly and Co., Pfizer Inc. and other large drugmakers will keep paying doctors to give talks about their products, leaving GlaxoSmithKline Plc alone for now in its decision to halt such compensation. According to Bloomberg News, United Kingdom-based Glaxo changed its policy after Chinese authorities accused the company of using cash and sexual favors to bribe doctors and health officials to promote product sales. But Lilly and other drugmakers say physicians are still in most cases the best source of information for their colleagues. “Few products in the world are as complex as an innovative medicine,” said Scott MacGregor, a spokesman for Indianapolis-based Lilly. He added that Glaxo’s move won’t change how Lilly does business. New York-based Pfizer, the world’s biggest drugmaker, is “committed to fairly compensating health-care professionals, clinical investigators and institutions for the work they do,” Dean Mastrojohn, a spokesman for the company, told Bloomberg.
Come January, UnitedHealthcare, the second-largest health insurer in Indiana, will have no major-medical policies to sell to individual Hoosier customers.
It’s no secret the growth of the U.S. economy slowed in the 2000s after the go-go decade preceding it. But the U.S. health care system—hospitals, doctors, drug companies, device makers and health insurers—apparently didn’t get that memo.
Dr. Monica Joyner has been appointed medical director for Wound Care Specialists, a new medical practice that is part of Franciscan Physician Network. Before joining Franciscan, Joyner served as executive director and director of education for Indianapolis-based MedTech College. Joyner earned a bachelor’s degree in psychobiology from Yale University and a medical degree at the Indiana University School of Medicine.
The Behavior Analysis Center for Autism promoted Beth Roudebush to clinical director of its facility in Zionsville. In her five years at the center, Roudebush has worked as a therapist, clinical trainer and assistant consultant. Prior to her work at the center, she served in management at Robert Half International, Enterprise Rent-A-Car and Bob Evans Farms Inc. She earned a bachelor’s degree in applied health sciences from Indiana University.
WellPoint Inc. named Jose Tomas its chief human resources officer. Tomas will replace Randy Brown, who is retiring at the end of the year. Prior to joining WellPoint, Tomas served as global chief people officer and president of the Latin America region for Burger King Corp. Before Burger King, Tomas held human resources positions with Ryder System Inc. and Publix Super Markets. Tomas holds a bachelor's degree in business administration and a master's in management from Florida International University.
WellPoint Inc. named Julie Goon senior vice president of public affairs. Most recently, Goon served as senior health policy director for the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee. Before that, she served as director of General Electric’s healthymagination marketing initiative. Earlier in her career, Goon held management posts at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services, America’s Health Insurance Plans, Humana Inc., and the Colorado Legislative Council. Goon received her bachelor’s degree in history from Colorado State University.
So-called “zero-premium plans” are priced in such a way that their premiums would be no greater than the federal tax subsidies that low-income buyers could claim.
Karin W. Sarratt is vice president of talent management and chief diversity officer at WellPoint Inc.
The giant health insurer raised its full-year profit forecast 40 cents per share, emboldened by stabilized customer rolls and slowing medical claims.
With payment reform and new technology, it’s plausible that health care will shift from being a bricks and mortar business to an information business–bringing us higher quality and lower costs. That’s exciting.
Markets on Tuesday weren’t fazed by the the first partial government shutdown in 17 years. Open enrollment for Obamacare exchanges helped WellPoint shares.
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.
Most of Indianapolis’ major hospitals and physician practices will not be available through Anthem’s exchange plan, but instead will be working with a health plan run by Indianapolis-based MDwise Inc.
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.
