In an interview with Scott Serota, President of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (BCBSA), discussed the recently adopted 4-point health care proposal that was adopted by the BCBSA board of directors. Serota said that one of the goals that the BCBSA is seeking to achieve is to ensure that health care costs do not [...]
Archive for October, 2008
Open enrollment for North Carolina High Risk Pool is Here
Open enrollment for the North Carolina Health Insurance Risk Pool , began as of October 20th following the recent acceptance by the North Carolina DOI of their rates and health benefit plans. The North Carolina Health Insurance Risk Pool (NCHIRP) is now doing business as Inclusive Health and can be found online at www.inclusivehealth.org, or [...]
Anthem to Pay for Performance
Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Indiana (a subsidiary of Wellpoint) announced an incentive program for physicians in their network which could increase their reimbursements by 10% if they follow recommended care guidelines. Bonuses that physicians would be eligible for would be based their relative ranking when comparing the health status of their patients to [...]
Wellpoint’s $10 Million Contest
Wellpoint in conjunction with X Prize Foundation, has announced a $10 Million competition to produce a system of health care proposals that would improve health care quality and reduce costs. Wellpoint will payout the prize to the winner of the competition. The competition could take several years as proposals would be tested in various state [...]
Medical Tourism, Is it safe?
Medical tourism is a practice that has become more common over the past year, and some health insurance companies are now starting to get on-board with the practice and actually paying bonuses to members who agree to get procedures done in this way. In short, Medical tourism is the practice of traveling overseas to have [...]
CIGNA give health tips via Facebook
CIGNA last week launched a facebook page that includes online courses, games, tools, calculators and podcasts designed to help people make better health care decisions. In addition, CIGNA is offering rewards for every three questions that are correctly answered by visitors. The reward is in the form of donations of clean water to children in [...]
Affordable Health Insurance Rally
An Organization called Health Insurance For All Americans (HIFAAM) is rallying to press elected officials to pass legislation that would provide affordable health insurance coverage to all Americans and legal residents without excluding individuals with pre-exisiting conditions. The founder of HIFAAM, Ameeta Rupani, says that her organization represents a non-partisan approach, with no funding from [...]
New Medicare Plans Offered by United Healthcare
UnitedHealth Group announced that Ovations, their health and well-being company for seniors, is launching a new portfolio of Medicare Health Plans for 2009. Ovations’ Medicare portfolio includes Medicare Advantage plans, Medicare Part D prescription drug plans, Medicare Supplement insurance programs, and innovative special needs plans. to find more information about the new medicare plans being [...]
Kaiser CEO Weighs in on Health Care Reform
CEO of Kaiser Permanente, George Halverson recently weighed in on health care reform and what he thought would happen in the short term. In summary, Mr. Halverson stated that he believes there is a very high likelihood that some level of health care reform will emerge from out of Washington as early as next year. [...]
Uninsured in Texas? You’re Not Alone
According to a report released by the U.S. Census Bureau, in the United States in aggregate roughly 17% of the population (under age 65) goes without health insurance coverage. Texas had the highest % of their state residents go uninsured than any other state as 26.3% of Texas residents (under age 65) went without health [...]
