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.
From this week’s historic data dump, I learned who the top 20 recipients of Medicare payments are in Indianapolis (hint: mostly labs, ambulances and eye surgeons). But the real takeaway is that meaningful price information about doctors is still a long way away.
When patients at Indianapolis-area hospitals pay their bills, they're not just funding their own health care. They're contributing to the care of Hoosiers in the rest of the state, too, especially care provided by hospital-employed physicians.
Franciscan Alliance, always the first to report its year-end financial results, put out numbers that show a real decline in profit from operations of 58 percent.
The health insurer predicted growth in government-funded health insurance programs would push revenue above $100 billion by 2018. That prompted investors to push WellPoint stock above $100 per share—an all-time high for the company.
House Public Health Chairman Ed Clere said Tuesday that negotiators had found a compromise that would ban new construction for two years except in counties whose nursing homes are at 90-percent capacity or higher.
Rich employer benefits are not always so attractive, sick patients are not always money losers for insurers, and hospitals and doctors are now health care preventers rather than health care providers. This is the bizarre world to which Obamacare has brought us.
Ronald Reed, the owner of Benchmark Mobility Corp., allegedly billed the Medicaid and Medicare programs for used wheelchairs, scooters and lift chairs as if they were brand new, obtaining nearly $443,000 in fraudulent sales.
St. Vincent Health has been sending roughly $50 million to $70 million every year to its parent company, St. Louis-based Ascension Health, to support other hospitals in Ascension’s 93-hospital network.
Congress’ recent willingness to play hardball with providers is driving providers to cautiously embrace concepts—like pay-for-performance and keeping patients out of the hospitals—they have long resisted.
There are clear signs that hospitals nationally, and even here in Indianapolis, are actually starting to make good on their promises to keep patients healthier and out of the hospital.
When Gov. Mike Pence tries next month to negotiate a Medicaid expansion deal in a meeting with the Obama administration, it will be a clash of the conservative and liberal approaches to fighting poverty.
Obamacare has officially arrived, but both conservatives and liberals are calling it awful. That means the real debate over health reform is just beginning.
Small business dumping, the uncertainty of Obamacare's exchanges, and the certainty of Obamacare's taxes will take a bite out of WellPoint's earnings next year. But company executives remain bullish on Obamacare's long-term impact.
The Obama administration has been releasing more price and quality information, but it is coming in a rather useless form for patients. That’s a problem for the prospects of consumer-driven health care.
In spite of President Obama’s promises that if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor, the president’s health reform law is spurring health insurers to make him a liar on that point too.
Pence wants to expand Medicaid coverage using some form of the Healthy Indiana Plan, which currently provides insurance to about 40,000 Hoosiers who agree to make monthly contributions to health savings accounts. The Obama administration has questioned that feature of the program.
Obamacare put an end to health insurers’ worst methods for avoiding risk. But that doesn’t mean insurers have ended their risk-shifting ways. Not at all.
Hoosiers’ poor health, combined with an aggressive health care system and an uncompetitive health insurance sector, means Hoosiers, in spite of the fact that they earn just 86 cents for every dollar earned by the average American, are spending nearly $1.13 on health care for every dollar spent by Americans.
Why are Indiana’s hospitals cutting jobs. Because they’re spooked about cuts to Medicare payments. They should be.
