United Healthcare, the largest insurer in the US, recently announced a new policy it said would help hold down health care costs: It would review claims for emergency department care, opening up the possibility that the company might deny coverage if a patient’s medical needs were not actually an emergency.
A voter-approved expansion of Medicaid took effect Thursday in Oklahoma after a decade of Republican resistance in a state that has become emblematic of the political struggle to extend the federal health insurance program in conservative strongholds.
An HHS proposed rule released Monday would do away with a Trump-era policy allowing states to bypass HealthCare.gov when seeking enrollees for Obamacare plans. The Department of Health and Human Services is also proposing to extend the annual regular open enrollment period for Affordable Care Act plans by an additional month, from Nov. 1 to Jan. 15 as compared with the current end date of Dec. 15. The new proposed rule (RIN 0938-AU60) supplements the regular annual rule setting parameters for Affordable Care Act plans. The CMS finalized payment parameters for 2022 ACA plans in April.
MassHealth director Dan Tsai is moving on after more than six years running the state’s Medicaid program to join the Biden administration as deputy administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The Baker administration announced Tsai’s departure, effective June 29, on Monday. In his new role, the state’s longest-serving Medicaid chief in almost 20 years will take on the role of director for the Center for Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program Services.
Healthy Indiana Plan participants no longer can lose their Medicaid health coverage for failing to comply with the employment mandate championed by Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) last week notified Indiana officials the federal government has revoked the state's authorization to require able-bodied, adult Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP) members to work, search for a job or participate in community service at least 20 hours a week as a condition of receiving state-supported health coverage.