The District of Columbia is targeting CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield in an effort to capture a portion of the large nonprofit's reserves for a new program serving the uninsured. The District has h…
Ground zero for job losses is the financial sector in New York, and insurers are bracing for membership declines. The jobless may have a difficult time finding low-cost individual policies in New York…
The consumer-driven health plan movement is undergoing a shakeup in California with health plans passing along double-digit rate increases for renewing customers to make up for losses on the high-dedu…
Massachusetts' health reform is running on all cylinders with 439,000 previously uninsured now covered in state or private plans. However, 2009 brings new challenges as the state mandates prescrip…
Maryland regulators cited and fined Coventry Health Care after finding the carrier failed to comply with state laws regarding prompt payment of claims, appeals, greivances, and more. Meanwhile, AMERIG…
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan has made its own in-house provider portal into the go-to site for Medicare elibibility and benefit information, even for those who are not its customers. In…
When Congress passed the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act this summer, health plans operating in the Medicare arena began to brace for the changes. Wisconsin health plans operating…
Florida insurers are seeing a marked movement toward self-insured health benefit designs, and the worsening economy in the state could keep the momentum toward self insurance under way for some time….
The managed care market in Oregon will be shaken up with the awarding of contracts for the Oregon Educators Benefit Board. Winning three-year contracts for medical and pharmacy coverage were Providenc…
PPOs may come under more regulatory scrutiny from the Texas Department of Insurance. Proposals being floated would require PPOs operating in Texas to have a certificate of authority and allow the TDI…
Hurricane Katrina may have shaken up the hospital and physician supply in New Orleans in 2005, but the disaster has not had a long-term negative effect on health plans in the region. Health plans have…
While all the major insurers in California now have electronic personal health records in place, only about 5 percent of health plan members are taking advantage of them and the industry is struggling…
Healthy Indiana Plan, which was created in 2007, is experiencing one of the fastest launches of any Medicaid-expansion program in the country. By mid-2008, the program had more than 14,000 Hoosiers en…
Iowa's governor has signed a healthcare reform law that increases coverage for children with family incomes up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level. The legislature also expanded the abilit…
Health plans in the Carolinas are managing specialty pharmacy costs at virtually every step of the process, from negotiating prices with manufacturers to creating special convenient networks. Blue Cro…