As local hospitals try to offer package deals with upfront prices on joint replacement surgeries, they're struggling with the reality that patients' other health conditions can significantly increase their cost of care.
A new study finds that Obamacare boosted enrollment in Indiana’s individual insurance market significantly over what it would have been without the law, but also caused premiums to spike.
Anthem patients in five U.S. cities, including Indianapolis, spent $220 less per MRI scan after Anthem told them of lower-cost facilities. In response, hospital-owned MRI facilities cut their prices.
WellPoint saw 218,000 members of its health plans disappear because their employers ended their group plans. Other insurers, however, say small employers are ending their plans more slowly than expected.
Indiana University Health fell off U.S. News’ honor roll of the nation’s top 1 percent of hospitals. Because of Obamacare and other trends, perhaps IU Health should be happy about that.
If this week’s D.C. appeals court ruling stands up—declaring the Obamacare tax subsidies illegal in Indiana and most other states—Gov. Mike Pence could face significant pressure, even from traditional Republican supporters, to keep the tax credits flowing.
One of the open secrets in health care is that hospitals are paid substantially more than independently owned health care facilities for the same procedures. But those higher fees are facing unprecedented pressure.
The economics of the Obamacare’s exchanges are proving attractive to both employers and workers, but a new poll shows that workers still don’t want to end up in them.
A new study found that common blood tests performed by hospital-owned facilities in the Indianapolis area were six to nine times more expensive than the same tests at independent lab facilities. Ouch!
Health care and health insurance were a mess long before Obamacare—and on a path to getting messier. That makes it awfully difficult to figure out how much blame and credit to give the law as it plays out in the marketplace. Here's my approach.
In a video presentation to his employees, Community Health CEO Bryan Mills discusses the threats hospitals face from retail clinics and employers—and how Community briefly discussed laying off 1,000 workers last year.
New data show eight out of 10 Hoosiers with private health insurance are covered by employer plans that are exempt from most Obamacare rules. So, rather than being an invasive train wreck, Obamacare may fail because it doesn’t affect enough people.
Two new studies show that Americans have every economic incentive to consume too much food and then, when that overeating creates health problems for them, to consume lots of health care to fix it.
Indiana ranks 10th in the nation for the highest spending on health care and 10th in the nation for the number of adults missing six or more teeth. That’s not a coincidence. Hoosiers do a poor job of taking care of themselves, and we end up paying for it in higher taxes and health insurance premiums.
RANAC Corp., a small firm in Indianapolis, cut its spending on health benefits 25 percent after dropping its group health plan. Could it be a sign of things to come?
When I predicted on March 13 that Obamacare would fail to expand individual private insurance coverage in Indiana, I was completely off. It now looks like an extra 30,000 Hoosiers have bought individual health insurance this year.
Until doctors and hospitals make a whole lot more headway—or, perhaps, more accurately, are allowed to make more headway—in offering package deals, it’s hard to see major progress on containing out-of-control health care costs.
The typical hospital around the country will see its profits wiped out entirely by the changes coming from health reform and the aging of the population. But in Indianapolis, the hits will be cushioned by this region's fatter commercial reimbursements.
Indiana is the most profitable state for Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc., which operates Blue Cross and Blue Shield health plans in 14 states. WellPoint’s margin for Indiana in 2012 was 5.8 percent, 38 percent higher than WellPoint’s national average.
WellPoint’s commanding market share gave it a whopping $129 million in profit from its risk-based insurance products in 2012. But in percentage terms, WellPoint was not at the top of the heap.
