The lawsuit, filed in a Maryland state court in late February, alleges that the UnitedHealth Group subsidiary's cybersecurity standards were insufficient to prevent the attack. The Russian ransomware group responsible for the cyberattack used stolen credentials to remotely access a company portal that didn't have multifactor authentication. CareFirst is seeking $900,000 in damages, along with interest and attorney fees.
The AMA and a chorus of physician groups decried what they say is a decision by the Republican-controlled Congress to allow a devastating cut in Medicare payments to physicians. A funding bill released over the weekend by Republicans who control the U.S. House of Representatives will allow to go forward a 2.8% cut in payments from Medicare.
Most of the 80,000 federal workers responsible for researching diseases, inspecting food and administering Medicare and Medicaid under the auspices of HHS were emailed an offer to leave their job for as much as a $25,000 payment as part of President Donald Trump's government cuts. Workers cannot start opting in until Monday and have until 5 p.m. on Friday to submit a response for the so-called voluntary separation offer.
Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island has reported a net loss of $115 million for 2024 after experiencing a nearly 20% increase in health care costs over the past 18 months. The company also announced a 3% reduction in the workforce, which constitutes 30 employees. Driven by a surge in both healthcare prices and utilization, pharmacy costs for BCBSRI members jumped 14% in 2024, while outpatient care grew more than 10% over the prior year.
More than 31 million Americans borrowed money last year to pay for health care, a new survey found. Those Americans borrowed about $74 billion, despite most of them have some form of health insurance, the West Health-Gallup survey found. Most of the borrowers were ages 18-29, 30-39 and 40-49. Just 2% of Americans who borrowed were over 65 years old.
Jeff Grant, the former deputy director for operations of the CMS division that oversees Obamacare and other programs, left Friday after a 41-year career in the federal government. He described an agency in wreckage after Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency swept through HHS and fired thousands of workers it deemed unfit for the agency's needs or inadequate to perform their job's duties.