Health Insurance

A new report by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ Consumer Representatives calls for regulatory oversight to ensure insurers comply with the Affordable Care Act requirement to cover certain preventive services without cost-sharing.
Trends in health insurance coverage are driving an increase in medical debt: these include inadequate enrollment in comprehensive health care coverage and high-deductible and skinny health plans that intentionally push more costs onto patients.
“Health insurance should be a bridge to medical care, not a barrier. Yet too many commercial health insurance policies often delay, disrupt and deny medically necessary care to patients,” writes AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack in an op-ed today in U.S. News & World Report.
The departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and the Treasury released a proposed rule that seeks to ensure commercial health plans comply with the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008, which prohibits them from imposing more restrictive requirements on mental health or…
Health insurance policies and practices are reducing access to medical care, driving up health care costs and increasing clinician burden and burnout, according to patients and clinicians surveyed by Morning Consult for the AHA.
The Administration released a proposed rule intended to limit the sale of non-comprehensive health care coverage and promote greater consumer understanding of their coverage options.  
In a letter to governors, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra encouraged states to use all available options (https://www.medicaid.gov/resources-for-states/downloads/state-strategies-to-prevent-procedural-terminations.pdf) to streamline Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance…
Escalating costs associated with managing their own practice coupled with burdensome insurer policies and regulatory requirements are some of the factors driving physicians to seek employment in other practice settings, according to a new report released by the AHA.
Following discussions between the American Hospital Association and United Healthcare, the insurer announced May 31 a refocused gastroenterology policy that relies on additional provider education rather than prior authorizations to address the insurer’s concerns about possible overutilization.