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STAT+: Extensive review finds private equity owners jack up the cost of medical care
Private equity firms are rapidly buying their way into the U.S. health care system, and…
Category: insurance
STAT+: DOJ, FTC primed for more aggressive scrutiny of health care mergers
Health care companies trying to merge can expect tougher policing from the top federal antitrust…
STAT+: States increasingly look to regulate hospital facility fees
Unexpected “facility fees” charged by hospitals have become a growing source of rage for patients,…
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STAT+: Medicare to cover more brain scans for Alzheimer’s patients
WASHINGTON — Medicare on Monday proposed ending restrictions on how many PET scans patients can…
STAT+: Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in California evaded $170 million in taxes, whistleblower says
Two dominant Blue Cross Blue Shield companies in California intentionally underreported premiums of certain health…
STAT+: Demand spikes in seniors, behavioral health care challenge UnitedHealth’s provider arm
UnitedHealth Group’s Optum subsidiary saw a lower operating margin in the second quarter due to…
STAT+: More hospitals are billing patients as online messages surge
Health systems drowning in messages from patients are grasping for new ways to manage the…
STAT+: How are insurers handling the Alzheimer’s drug Leqembi and related scans?
WASHINGTON — A week after the Food and Drug Administration granted full, traditional approval to…
STAT+: How UnitedHealth’s acquisition of a popular Medicare Advantage algorithm sparked internal dissent over denied care
Frustration was boiling into open conflict within NaviHealth, a company that uses computer predictions to…
STAT+: Blue Cross Blue Shield insurers keep winning from Affordable Care Act’s risk program
A program that undergirds the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance marketplaces continues to bolster the…
Biden launches a new push to limit health care costs hoping to show he can save money for families
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Biden on Friday rolled out a new set of initiatives to…
STAT+: Bright Health sells Medicare Advantage plans to Molina for $600 million
Bright Health Group has agreed to sell its Medicare Advantage plans to its publicly traded…
STAT+: Protestors slam health insurance lobby for Medicare Advantage coverage restrictions
WASHINGTON — Hundreds of activists rallied today outside of the headquarters of the country’s largest…
STAT+: UnitedHealth wins $3.3 billion takeover of home health giant Amedisys
Home health and hospice chain Amedisys has chosen a new corporate owner. Amedisys and UnitedHealth…
‘We fail people’: New data on disparities in Medicaid access to opioid addiction treatment
An estimated 82,998 people died from opioid overdoses in the U.S. last year. A new…
STAT+: Using its Covid know-how, Color Health aims to make cancer screenings convenient
Color Health wants to take away any reason you might have for skipping screenings for…
Opinion: The staggering financial burden of giving birth — even with insurance
The burden of high health care costs and medical debt in the U.S. is no…
STAT+: Drug middlemen catch flak at another congressional hearing
Drug middlemen once again were on the hot seat at a congressional hearing on Wednesday….
Sen. Grassley calls on GOP leaders to rally support for PBM reforms
WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley wants to see his party’s leadership turn up the…
STAT+: ‘It’s beyond unethical’: Opaque conflicts of interest permeate prescription drug benefits
Employers across the country — from big names like Boeing and UPS to local school…
Opinion: STAT+: How I’m helping companies think through whether they should cover GLP-1s like Ozempic for employees
We have a knack in the U.S. for blurring behavior and medicine. Look at weight….
STAT+: Health insurance stocks tumble after UnitedHealth says Medicare enrollees are getting more care
A top executive at UnitedHealth Group said Tuesday that the health insurance and services conglomerate…
STAT+: Fed up with exorbitant health costs, employers and workers are taking insurers to court
Companies, unions, and workers are at a breaking point over how much they pay for…
Opinion: Your health insurance may not be as good your state requires — and it’s perfectly legal
In 2017, the Massachusetts state Legislature passed a law to ensure ease of access to…
STAT+: With digital therapeutics businesses flailing, the industry descends on D.C. to make the case for coverage
This week, the leading advocacy group for digital therapeutics companies is gathering the industry’s leaders…
STAT+: UnitedHealth starts bidding war with $3.3 billion offer for Amedisys
There’s now a two-party showdown for one of the largest home health companies in the…
STAT+: How Blue Cross Blue Shield insurers ratcheted up profits in 2022
A $203 million tax refund for Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina. Nearly $1.5…
After outcry, UnitedHealthcare softens prior authorization policy for colonoscopies
After weeks of protest from physician organizations and patients, UnitedHealthcare has put a controversial new…
Insurance alone didn’t guarantee adherence to Ozempic, study finds
Having insurance coverage alone doesn’t guarantee that people can afford or would be willing to…
STAT+: CVS warns PBM reforms ‘could lead to higher costs’
As Congress considers wide-ranging reforms to pharmacy benefit managers, a top executive at CVS Health,…
STAT+: Matt Eyles, CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans, to depart
Matt Eyles, CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans, is leaving by this October, the lobbying…
Senators probing largest Medicare Advantage plans over how algorithms factor in care denials
Senators warned the country’s largest Medicare Advantage insurers at a hearing on Wednesday that they…
STAT+: Hospital-insurer tussle in Arizona puts care denials front and center
UnitedHealthcare and Phoenix Children’s Hospital are embroiled in a bitter contract dispute that would lock…
‘Stunning’ change to United’s colonoscopy coverage roils physicians and patients
When gastroenterologists learned in March that UnitedHealthcare plans to barricade many colonoscopies behind a controversial…
A former health insurance executive turns to tech to make claims less of a nightmare
You’re reading the web edition of STAT Health Tech, our guide to how tech is…
Gail Wilensky on the Geisinger deal, the earnings bonanza, and medical credit cards proliferate
You’re reading the web version of Health Care Inc., STAT’s weekly newsletter following the flow…
STAT+: Geisinger board member: Local consolidation influenced Kaiser-Geisinger deal
A long-running flurry of hospital and medical group acquisitions in Pennsylvania — especially among the…
“Patients are not hot potatoes”: How the fight over dialysis coverage is putting kidney failure patients at risk
As soon as she heard the Supreme Court decision, LaVarne Burton began to worry. As…
STAT+: Option Care takes over Amedisys in ‘perplexing’ $3.6 billion home care deal
Option Care Health is buying Amedisys in an all-stock merger valued at $3.6 billion, creating…
STAT+: Disagreements and digs upend an otherwise bipartisan hearing on PBM reform
WASHINGTON — The first Senate health committee markup under Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and ranking…
STAT+: Carbon Health blasts a major insurer in rare public dispute over coverage
OAKLAND, Calif. — Primary care startup Carbon Health blasted health insurer Elevance on Monday for…
STAT+: New mega-deal highlights Geisinger’s fall, and raises concerns about where Kaiser is going next
In 2009, when President Barack Obama was touring the country and ginning up support for…
STAT+: Bright Health looks to get out of health insurance entirely
Bright Health Group started as a health insurance company. But it will no longer be…
Biden officials propose slate of Medicaid transparency changes
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Thursday rolled out proposals to set national standards for…
STAT+: Health insurance CEOs set another record for pay in 2022
Business has never been better for the largest health insurers in the country, which led…
STAT+: Kaiser Permanente, Geisinger to merge into national health system
Kaiser Permanente and Geisinger have agreed to combine into a new national not-for-profit system that…
STAT+: Another powerful congressional committee is ready to take on PBMs
WASHINGTON — House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer plans to hold a hearing on the…
STAT+: How a small hospital in Nebraska has thrived through the pandemic
Great Plains Health is a small hospital system in a part of Nebraska surrounded by…
STAT+: HCA bags big first quarter as patient volumes soar
Patient volumes are back in a big way, at least for the country’s largest for-profit…
STAT+: UnitedHealth says medical costs aren’t soaring. The reality is murkier
Executives at UnitedHealth Group hinted Friday that hospitalizations are not rising and that people are…