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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Even without Medicaid expansion, Obamacare appears to have substantially reduced the more than 900,000 Hoosiers that go without health insurance during a year.
There are more choices and better deals in the 2015 Obamacare exchange, but if you want the same coverage as last year, it’s going to cost you more.
Obamacare's community rating rules would give 25-percent-off coupons to boomers while sticking millennials with a 75-percent surcharge, according to recent data from employer health plans.
The federal government has spent $27 billion—and hospital systems have spent even more—to roll out electronic medical records across the industry. But even advocates say the results have been “disappointing.”
WellPoint created an HMO joint venture with seven big hospitals in Los Angeles. Could it do something similar here? Quite possibly.
Paying off medical debts over time is now a common experience for families with health insurance and becoming more so. And that is inducing big changes in the health care marketplace.
For Indiana employers with fewer than 10 workers, health insurance premiums have risen 11.5 percent, on average, from 2001 to 2013. That ranked second-highest among all states.