UnitedHealthcare's Connected Care program, an effort to create a national telehealth network, has taken root in a partnership with Centura Health and rural health facilities. Diabetes management h…
Chronic pain is a multi-billion dollar market saturated with well-established branded and generic analgesics that are only partially effective. While drugs with novel mechanisms of action that offer g…
Employers in North Carolina and South Carolina are turning to so-called hybrid plans to help them continue to offer coverage in one of the regions worst hit by job losses. The hybrid plans combine fea…
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…
The HMO subsidiary of Michigan's largest health insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan has begun the process to purchase an independent, Lansing-based HMO, Physicians Health Plan of Mid-Michi…
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…
The HealthLeaders-InterStudy Market Analyst team analyzes major developments at the nation’s publicly held health plans each quarter through their financial releases and conference call transcripts. T…
Enrollment in Medicare Advantage continues to grow in the South though private-fee-for-service plans are leaving the market in anticipation of the Congressional mandate for network-based products in 2…
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…
With all eyes focused on the national healthcare reform debate, California is already tackling many of the same thorny issues raised by policymakers. Healthy San Francisco, the city/county’s 2-year-ol…
Three major insurers — Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Humana and UnitedHealthcare — have teamed up with 11 local physician group practices and a local organization to pilot a patient-centered m…
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…
HealthLeaders-InterStudy periodically publishes special analyst reports on healthcare topics of interest.
Pennsylvania stands out from most states because of the dominance of four Blue Cross Blue Shield plans that operate, for the most part, exclusively in their own territories. Whether the Blue plans’ un…
Kansas Medicaid members could face a preferred drug list and a streamlined prior authorization process, which could widen the number of therapeutic classes the state covers. These changes are borne ou…