Independence Blue Cross is one of the state’s largest health insurers, but is one of the last to cover its members’ self-injected specialty drugs under the medical benefit. But that’s changing in 2010…
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City has engaged a medical home pilot with TransforMED, bringing new technologies to 13 medical practices in its operating regions. The practices can build the med…
Florida Medicare Advantage plans are reacting to reduced reimbursements by scaling back benefits and raising costs to their HMO members for 2010. The change, which comes as the federal government is c…
Group Health's governance as a nonprofit member-owned cooperative has attracted national attention recently as healthcare reform discussions in Washington DC look toward insurance cooperatives as…
Minnesota health plans are facing the specter of rising specialty drug costs and are implementing a variety of strategies to control those costs, including shifting specialty drugs from the medical be…
South Carolina's expanded Medicaid managed care program attracted a crowd of health plans interested in insuring beneficiaries, but the crowd is thinning with two MCOs throwing in the towel in 200…
The recession severely damaged Florida insurers in 2008 as the ranks of commercially insured members dropped by 1.2 million last year amid layoffs and benefit cuts at Florida businesses. Every signifi…
Texas has taken its largest step yet toward addressing the nation's worst uninsured rate by green-lighting the first step toward Healthy Texas, a reinsurance program that could allow small busines…
With the economy hitting California hard, the pressure is on more than ever for health insurers to respond to the small employer group market, in particular, with plan designs that get the premiums do…
Fallon Community Health Plan, based in Worcester, Mass., is reacting to local market dynamics in announcing its intention to expand into neighboring New Hampshire. The Massachusetts market is dominate…
As many as seven patient-centered medical home projects have cropped up throughout Ohio with CareSource working with providers on a Medicaid-focused PCMH. A medical-home initiative in Cincinnati inclu…
Florida delivers managed care services to Medicaid beneficiaries in many ways, and now it's looking at adding yet another delivery system. In the summer of 2010, the state plans to test a medical…
Texas' Medicaid program is on the verge of considerable change with the potential for expansion of managed care into both adult and children's programs. At the same time, the Texas Legislature…
Humana Inc. is making a splash in both Ohio and Kentucky with provider relations issues. In Louisville, the insurer's introduction of a narrow network of providers for the Ford Motor Co. has raise…
Texas possesses the worst uninsured rate in the nation not just for adults, but children. One in five Texas children lacks health benefits, even though many qualify for Medicaid and the Children's…