Category: Health Insurance
Gone are the days of just signing up for health insurance and hoping you don’t have to use it. Now, more employees are being asked to roll up their sleeves for medical tests — and to exercise, participate in disease management programs and quit smoking to qualify for hundreds, even thousands of dollars’ worth of premium or deductible discounts.
Younger patients and those with several chronic illnesses are more likely to report difficulties with care coordination than older patients with just one chronic illness,
Study of Washington State and Maryland hospitals finds that the actions of hospitals – not the kinds of patients they attract – appear to be responsible for part of the difference in admissions to ICUs, which some experts believe are overused, costly and potentially dangerous.
Why does U.S. health care costs so much? How do insurance companies decide to refuse you coverage? How do Medicare scams work? ProPublica rounds up the best articles looking for answers to these and other questions.
Medicare’s largest effort to pay hospitals based on how they perform did not lead to fewer deaths, casting doubt on a central premise of the new health law’s effort to rework the financial incentives for hospitals with the aim of saving money while improving patient care.
“We have four members of the court going one way and four members going the other way. Those who have been saying this is going to be an 8-to-1, or a 7-to-2 decision have clearly been refuted.”
Even without the health-care reform law, the federal government is changing how it pays doctors and hospitals, from a system that rewards volume to one that rewards quality. . . . “I think if the health care law were repealed tomorrow, it would not change the direction of what is happening in the marketplace.”
Insurers have tried to cajole us into using less-expensive health providers by promising lower co-pays and other cost-sharing breaks. Now, they’re trying an even more direct approach: cash rewards.
What are the major arguments concerning the individual mandate? Medicaid expansion? That Anti-injunction Act? What is the Anti-injunction Act? And what’s severability? Stuart Taylor, Jr. answers these and other questions about this weeks Supreme Court arguments.
Weekend Reading: Health-care reform and women’s health. Our drug shortage. The science of midwifery. How the Supreme Court will rule on health-care reform law?
In addition to requiring free contraceptive coverage, this year the new health law will require premium rebates and clearer descriptions of health plan benefits and will lower out-of-pocket Medicare drug costs.
Santorum once wanted more government involvement in health care, not less. Electronic health records and medical malpractice. Making the best of old age. Talking about AIDS and sex.
LocalHealthGuide is a health news and information web service for Seattle and the Puget Sound Region. We are independent and unaffiliated with any hospital, medical association or insurer. If you have questions or if your group has an upcoming event that you would like us to cover, please let us know by going to our "Contact Us" page and dropping us a note. -- Michael McCarthy, Editor
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Lost in translation: Lack of trained interpreters can lead to medical errors
Interpreter services at hospitals and other medical settings are often inadequate, forcing family members, including children, to step in, or the task falls to medical staff members who may not speak the language well.
Some insurers deny ER coverage to people who have been drinking
Laws in more than half the states permit insurers to deny payment for medical services related to alcohol or drug use. Faced with the prospect of not getting paid for care, some ER personnel sidestep the problem by simply not testing patients’ blood or urine for alcohol.
Travel insurance can protect your wallet — and your health on vacation
Think your regular health insurance policy will cover you if you get into medical trouble overseas?
Don’t bet on it.
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