October 2, 2020
Health care is becoming increasingly expensive for Americans. This isn’t news and recent data backs it up. Health insurance premium contributions and deductibles combined are a good measure of total health care costs for Americans. Recent Findings Suggest American Workers are Spending More on Health Care According to this measure, the Commonwealth Fund of NYU …
October 1, 2020
The U.S. healthcare system has two categories of payers, pubic and private. And according to a new RAND study that looked at 2018 data, prices paid to hospitals by privately covered patients averaged 247% of what Medicare would have paid. The exact figure for a given state varied widely. The authors of the study analyzed …
September 28, 2020
Last week, the Trump administration finally released it’s final rule for lowering drug prices after teasing the rule for months. Under this rule, states are allowed to import drugs from Canada as long as it would save consumers money and won’t impose safety risks to the public. What Country Pays the Most for Prescription Drugs? …
September 25, 2020
Medical bills in the U.S. can run 5, 6, and even 7-figures in certain instances. With that much money on the line, medical bills generated by providers and hospitals should be fairly accurate, right? Think again. Upwards of 80% of Medical Bills Contain Errors According to Pat Palmer, CEO and founder of Medical Billing Advocates …
September 25, 2020
With a majority of U.S workers receiving their medical benefits from self-funded healthcare plans and a significant portion of U.S. employers self-funding, groups may be wondering if self-funding is right for them. There’s no solid yes or no answer to this question, as the answer depends on each company’s unique situation and characteristics. Let’s look …
September 24, 2020
A majority of U.S. employees are covered by self-funded healthcare plans. What does that mean for those companies who self-fund their medical benefits? Self-Funding vs. Fully Insured Traditional health insurance, known as fully-insured, is purchased from a health insurance carrier, who sets a certain premium for the plans made available to employees. The carrier administers …
September 18, 2020
Prescription drug prices in the U.S. are much higher than in other countries for a variety of reasons, including a limitation on Medicare’s ability to negotiate with manufacturers. That may change, depending on what happens next. The White House finally released text of an executive order first signed in July that would tie Medicare payments …
September 16, 2020
(Image: Cover of “Mind the Gap: A Handbook of Clinical Signs in Black and Brown Skin”) Medical students should be trained to correctly diagnose the symptoms of common conditions and diseases, then deliver the appropriate care. Sounds straightforward, right? Not for Malone Mukwende, who didn’t find examples of dark skin in his textbooks and …
September 8, 2020
According to a new study, people with behavioral health conditions tend to have higher healthcare costs than those who don’t, based on data from employers and other commercial payers. Researchers looked at insurance claims for 21 million people in 2017 and came away with some important findings: 27% of people who had a behavioral health …
September 8, 2020
Racial disparities in health care affect literally the first hours of a black child’s life, according to researchers who looked at over 2 decades of data. A study performed by George Mason University looked at data for 1.8 million hospital births in Florida between 1992 and 2015 and was recently published in the journal Proceedings …
