State of Illinois Selects Coventry Health Care for Open Access Plan and HMO Health Benefit Plans

CHAMPAIGN, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Coventry Health Care of Illinois, Inc. (“Coventry Health Care”), formerly PersonalCare Insurance of Illinois, Inc., is pleased to announce that Coventry Health Care will continue to participate in the state of Illinois’ Open Access Plan (“OAP”) and HMO benefit plans.

On May 1, the state of Illinois and Coventry Health Care signed a long-term contract for the OAP that will allow Coventry Health Care to administer the health benefits plan through 2016.

The state also recently announced its decision to offer Coventry Health Care’s HMO plan to its employees for a 90-day period, effective July 1 to September 28. HMO members looking for a long-term solution are encouraged to consider the OAP, which offers many of the same benefits as the HMO with an expanded provider network and an option to renew through 2016.

The OAP administered by Coventry Health Care offers nationwide provider access, low-cost dependent coverage, online wellness resources and a proven track record of excellent service. Based in Champaign, Coventry Health Care’s services are delivered locally and supported by national parent company Coventry Health Care, Inc.

"We’re grateful for another opportunity to assist state employees and their families with high quality, affordable health care,” said Mike Wolff, Coventry Health Care executive director in Illinois. “The state and their employees can rest assured our local health plan staff is prepared to provide the same excellent service and benefits they have enjoyed for the past 28 years."

State employees can enroll in the plan of their choice throughout the benefit choice period, which began on May 1. The duration of the open enrollment period is being determined by the state. Employees are encouraged to stay up to date by visiting www.benefitschoice.il.gov.

About Coventry Health Care

Serving the community since 1984, Coventry Health Care, formerly PersonalCare Insurance of Illinois, Inc., is a local health plan supported by resources of its parent company, Coventry Health Care, Inc. Recognized by Consumer Reports and the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) as one of the top-ranked commercial health plans in Illinois for the sixth consecutive year in November 2011, Coventry Health Care’s employees serve customers from offices in Champaign, Downers Grove, Peoria and Rockford. Visit www.chcillinois.com to learn more.

About Coventry Health Care, Inc.

Coventry Health Care, Inc. (“Coventry”) is a national managed health care company operating health plans, insurance companies, network rental companies and workers’ compensation services companies. Coventry provides a full range of risk and fee-based managed care products and services to a broad cross section of individuals, employer and government-funded groups, government agencies, and other insurance carriers and plan administrators. The company is based in Bethesda, Md.

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Aetna to Provide Assurant Health Customers Access to Flexible, Convenient Pharmacy Services

HARTFORD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Aetna (NYSE: AET) announced today a multi-year pharmacy benefit management agreement with Assurant Health, a leading provider of major medical, supplemental and fixed-benefit health plans for individuals, families and small employers. Aetna will deliver pharmacy benefit management solutions that will help manage costs and improve member health for Assurant Health’s customers in the 47 states in which they do business. Assurant Health customers will also benefit from Aetna’s agreement with CVS Caremark and their broad, national network of participating pharmacies, comprehensive pharmacy care support, and easy-to-use tools to manage their prescriptions. The agreement represents a full replacement of Assurant Health’s current pharmacy benefit manager for the majority of its customers, and will be effective on January 1, 2013.

“We are very excited about this opportunity to expand into a new marketplace and demonstrate the value of our integrated pharmacy benefit management capabilities,” said Laurie Brubaker, head of Aetna Pharmacy Benefit Management.

Assurant Health focuses on providing affordable health care coverage and services that help customers better manage their health care dollars.

“We understand consumers want clear information and tools to help them make cost-effective decisions when it comes to managing their health care budgets,” said Adam Lamnin, president and CEO of Assurant Health. “We are pleased that our customers will have access to tools through Aetna and CVS Caremark that will help them make the most of their prescription benefits.”

About Assurant Health

Assurant Health is the brand name for a family of health insurance products focused on providing a variety of affordable plan choices to consumers. The portfolio of health care products includes major medical, supplemental and fixed-benefit plans for individuals, families and small employers. Assurant Health is committed to providing access to convenient health care delivery, easy-to-understand products and value-added services that help customers better manage their health care dollars and get the most out of their coverage. Assurant Health’s products are underwritten and issued by John Alden Life Insurance Company, Union Security Insurance Company and Time Insurance Company, which has been in business since 1892. Headquartered in Milwaukee, Assurant Health employs approximately 2,000 employees. www.assuranthealth.com

Additional Company Information

Assurant Health is part of Assurant, a premier provider of specialized insurance products and related services in North America and select worldwide markets. Assurant, a Fortune 500 company and a member of the S&P 500, is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol AIZ. Assurant has approximately $27 billion in assets and $8 billion in annual revenue. www.assurant.com

About Aetna

Aetna is one of the nation's leading diversified health care benefits companies, serving approximately 36.1 million people with information and resources to help them make better informed decisions about their health care. Aetna offers a broad range of traditional, voluntary and consumer-directed health insurance products and related services, including medical, pharmacy, dental, behavioral health, group life and disability plans, and medical management capabilities, Medicaid health care management services and health information technology services. Our customers include employer groups, individuals, college students, part-time and hourly workers, health plans, health care providers, governmental units, government-sponsored plans, labor groups and expatriates. For more information, see www.aetna.com.

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Castlight Health Takes Health Care Transparency Mobile With New Applications and Mobile Web Access

Castlight Health, developer of a personalized health care shopping platform, today announced the launch of Castlight Mobile, a new offering that extends the power of the Castlight Health platform to users’ preferred mobile devices. Available as a native application for Apple iOS and Google Android, Castlight Mobile provides users the flexibility to view health care cost and quality data at anytime and from anywhere. BlackBerry and other smartphone users can also access an optimized mobile Web experience. The mobile products are available today to users at all of Castlight’s employer customers, at no additional charge.

Castlight Mobile extends the power of the Castlight Health platform to users' preferred mobile devices, delivering health care pricing and quality data anytime, anywhere. (Photo: Business Wire)

Offered by innovative companies to their employees, the Castlight Health platform transforms the way consumers shop for health care. The personalized, secure platform provides employees a wealth of data about the price of medical services, the quality of physicians and facilities, as well as important educational and convenience information. With Castlight, employers can maintain or improve the quality of employees’ care and lower total health care spend.

“Traditionally, transparency into the cost and quality of health care services has been largely unavailable to consumers. We are changing this paradigm by enabling companies to offer their employees easy access to the data they need to make better health care decisions,” said Ethan Prater, vice president of products at Castlight Health. “Castlight Mobile gives our users another access point to informative health care data, regardless of their location.”

“Many of our talented employees spend their time with customers on the salon floor, rather than in front of computers, so their smartphones often act as their primary computing devices,” said Allison Brown, director of employee services, Regis Corporation. “With new mobile options for accessing the Castlight platform, our employees will have easy access to cost and quality health care information wherever they are. We expect that in addition to helping our staff save money, this offering will also help them become more engaged in their health and wellness.”

Transparency into Health Care Cost and Quality, Direct from a User’s Preferred Mobile Device

The new mobile offerings deliver the key functionality of the Castlight Health platform in a secure, easy-to-use format that is tightly integrated to the Web-based portal to ensure a unified user experience. Regardless of their preferred mobile device, users can find care based on a doctor’s name, specialty or a condition; get on-the-go access to up-to-date health plan information; and keep critical health care information – such as specialists and family doctors – in one place.

“Today, when doctors recommend specialists, most people will take their word for it,” added Prater. “We’re all about ensuring that health care consumers are better informed – no matter where they are. With Castlight Health’s mobile offerings, users can become more informed about the care they’re receiving and paying for, before they go.”

To learn more about the Castlight Health Mobile, please visit: www.castlighthealth.com/mobile.

About Castlight Health

Castlight Health enables employers, their employees, and health plans to take control of health care costs and improve care. Named #1 on The Wall Street Journal’s list of “The Top 50 Venture-Backed Companies” for 2011 and one of Dow Jones’ 50 Most Investment-Worthy Technology Start-Ups, Castlight Health helps the country’s self-insured employers and health plans empower consumers to shop for health care. Castlight Health is headquartered in San Francisco and backed by prominent investors including Venrock, Oak Investment Partners, Maverick Capital, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Wellcome Trust, Cleveland Clinic, and U.S. Venture Partners. For more information, please visit our web site at http://www.castlighthealth.com or call (415) 829-1400.

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi?eid=50220145&lang=en

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New Study: Expanding Medicaid Reduces Access to Health Care

Ted Kennedy helped to create the S-CHIP program. Image via Wikipedia

Chapin White of the Center for Studying Health System Change has published an important new paper in Health Services Research, a journal of health economics, which suggests that a critical part of the Affordable Care Act—its expansion of Medicaid coverage to 16 million more Americans—may actually reduce those individuals’ access to health care.

White’s report comes on the heels of numerous studies that show that patients on Medicaid, our national government-run health-care program for the poor, do far worse on health outcomes than do those on private insurance, and in some cases, worse than those with no insurance at all. (For an extremely deep dive into these studies, see my three-part series on the topic.)

Medicaid underpays doctors for their expenses

Why does this occur? The main reason is that Medicaid underpays doctors and hospitals to care for Medicaid beneficiaries. Medicaid’s reimbursement rates are around half of those paid by private insurers. In many cases, Medicaid pays doctors less than it costs to care for Medicaid patients, meaning that doctors face the choice of caring for the poor, and going broke, or shutting their doors to Medicaid patients. One survey found that internists were 8.5 times as likely to accept no Medicaid patients at all, relative to those with private insurance. Another found that two-thirds of kids on Medicaid were denied a doctor’s appointment for a serious condition, relatively to only 11 percent for the privately-insured.

Believe it or not, physicians even do better caring for the uninsured than they do caring for Medicaid patients. Two MIT economists, Jonathan Gruber and David Rodriguez, have found that three-quarters of physicians receive lower fees for serving Medicaid patients than they do for the uninsured, because many people without health insurance are still able to pay out-of-pocket for routine health expenses. (Ironically, Gruber was the intellectual father of Obamacare, and remains an outspoken advocate of the law.)

Overall, Medicaid expansions do not lead to more doctor visits

Chapin White looked into this problem by examining the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or S-CHIP, which was created by Congress in 1997 as a way of expanding Medicaid to lower-income children who were above the income thresholds of traditional Medicaid. He found that CHIP was “not associated with any change in the aggregate quantity of physician services [consumed],” and concluded that “coverage expansions…do not necessarily increase physician utilization.”

The main reason for this non-effect, he surmised, was due to the fact that CHIP paid physicians less for their time and expenses. “Increasing Medicaid fees,” he wrote, “is…clearly related to a reduction in non-[cost-sharing]-related access problems among both low- and high-income children.”

White compared children in states which had undergone large CHIP expansions, and compared them to children in states with smaller expansions. He also examined increases versus decreases in Medicaid physician fees. He found, surprisingly, that physician utilization was lower in the states with the largest CHIP expansions, and that expansions of CHIP led many children to lose private insurance as the government program crowded out the private sector. “Supply-side effects of CHIP—either the use of managed care tools or the relatively low reimbursement rates, or both—may have limited the utilization effect of the coverage expansion,” White concluded.

PPACA’s Medicaid expansion could worsen physician access

As the below table shows, 11 percent of children in the lowest income quartile, who were uninsured, gained insurance; however, 13 percent of children in that quartile who had private insurance lost it, while Medicaid/CHIP expanded by 23 percent of children. In other words, for every two children who gained Medicaid coverage, one lost private coverage.

In the third-lowest and second-lowest quartiles, the proportion of those gaining Medicaid coverage and those losing private coverage were almost identical, suggesting that Medicaid was replacing private coverage in the majority of cases. Those individuals who are subject to the replacement will have poorer access to health care, because Medicaid pays less than private insurance. It is this cohort, represented especially by White’s third-lowest quartile, that is subject to Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid.

White concludes: “In general, these findings argue strongly against the idea that the effect of expanding utilization can be deduced simply from the reduction in patient cost sharing…Coverage expansions by themselves do not necessarily spur increases or decreases in overall utilization.”

Put more simply, health insurance is not the same thing as health care.

(This article originally appeared in The Atlantic, where I am guest blogging for Megan McArdle for two weeks.)

Follow Avik on Twitter at @aviksaroy.

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Health Net of California Expands Access to Hispanic-Focused Health Care in Kern County

Thu, Mar 1, 2012, 2:12 PM EST - U.S. Markets close in 1 hr 48 mins

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Democrats Will Protect Access To Women's Health Services

Senators will fight to ensure women have access to the full range of preventative health services covered under the Affordable Care Act, including birth control. This press conference included Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Patty Murray (D- WA), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D- NY).

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Democrats Will Protect Access To Women's Health Services

Senators will fight to ensure women have access to the full range of preventative health services covered under the Affordable Care Act, including birth control. This press conference included Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Patty Murray (D- WA), Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D- NY).

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Health Systems to Access Payor and Provider Data to Support New Care Delivery Models and Improve Population Health

Thu, Feb 2, 2012, 6:02 PM EST - U.S. Markets closed

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LifeWise Health Plan of Washington Brings Members First Time Access to Mobile Tool for Managing Their Health Plan

Mon, Jan 23, 2012, 1:00 PM EST - U.S. Markets close in 3 hrs.

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LifeWise Health Plan of Oregon Brings Members First Time Access to Mobile Tool for Managing Their Health Plan

Mon, Jan 23, 2012, 1:01 PM EST - U.S. Markets close in 2 hrs 59 mins

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Assurant Health Contracts With Aetna Signature Administrators® to Provide Consumers With Access to Expanded PPO ...

MILWAUKEE, Jan. 17, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Assurant Health, a leading provider of major medical, supplemental and fixed-benefit health plans for individuals, families and small employers, announces an agreement with Aetna Signature Administrators, allowing current and prospective major medical customers of Assurant Health to access the Aetna Signature Administrators national PPO network.

Beginning in March, major medical customers of Assurant Health will be able to access care from more than one million health care providers and 7,500 hospitals nationwide within the Aetna Signature Administrators PPO network. Access to this network will enhance the competitiveness of Assurant Health for individuals, families and small groups. In addition, Aetna will provide utilization and case management services to Assurant members and share risk as part of a reinsurance agreement.

"This partnership with Aetna reaffirms the commitment of Assurant Health to ensuring our customers can access high-quality, affordable health care coverage," said Adam Lamnin, president and CEO of Assurant Health. "This is great for our customers and exciting for Assurant Health as we strengthen our position as a leading provider of individual and small group major medical insurance in the United States."

The multi-year agreement provides access to all current and future Assurant Health major medical individual and small group policyholders.

"Through Aetna Signature Administrators, members can gain access to a strong nationwide network of health care providers and important medical management services," said Ralph Borzillo, President of the Aetna Signature Administrators business. "We are excited to provide these critical services to Assurant Health's members."

About Assurant Health
Assurant Health is the brand name for a family of health insurance products focused on providing a variety of affordable plan choices to consumers. The portfolio of health care products includes major medical, supplemental and fixed-benefit plans for individuals, families and small employers. Assurant Health is committed to providing access to convenient health care delivery, easy-to-understand products and value-added services that help customers better manage their health care dollars and get the most out of their coverage—ultimately seeking to protect not only financial security but also the health and well being of its customers. Assurant Health's products are underwritten and issued by John Alden Life Insurance Company, Union Security Insurance Company and Time Insurance Company, which has been in business since 1892. Headquartered in Milwaukee, Assurant Health employs approximately 2,000 employees. www.assuranthealth.com

Assurant Health is part of Assurant, a premier provider of specialized insurance products and related services in North America and select worldwide markets. Assurant, a Fortune 500 company and a member of the S&P 500, is traded on the New York Stock Exchange and has approximately $27 billion in assets and $8 billion in annual revenue. www.assurant.com

About Aetna Signature Administrators
Aetna Signature Administrators provides access to a national PPO network, medical management services and stop loss or reinsurance coverage to third party administrators and health plans.  

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RedBrick Health Launches RedBrick Mobile, Bringing Consumers On-the-go Access to its Engaging Health Improvement Tools ...

MINNEAPOLIS , Jan. 11, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --  RedBrick Health, a leader in consumer health engagement technology, announced today the launch of RedBrick Mobile, providing its rapidly expanding user base on-the-go access to RedBrick's innovative employee health engagement tools and applications. With mobile access changing the game in employee health and wellness, RedBrick's Health Management Innovation Lab developed one of the industry's most comprehensive mobile suites so users could incorporate RedBrick's programs into their daily life.

"Research shows that consumers are increasingly relying on smartphones as their primary information resource," said Daniel Ryan, chief executive officer for RedBrick Health. "With this in mind, we are thrilled to provide our clients mobile access to the best of RedBrick's online features so their employees can more easily track progress, take part in social networked games and challenges, and ultimately reach their individual health improvement goals."

RedBrick Mobile is fully integrated with RedBrick's suite of online and telephone-delivered services, providing the consumer a uniquely seamless experience across web, mobile device, and live support services. Through RedBrick Mobile, employees and dependents of RedBrick's corporate clients can now join health improvement programs, track activity, earn rewards and participate within social health games. All of these programs are available in both English and Spanish, as RedBrick Mobile features a category-first translator button that allows users to switch the entire mobile suite instantaneously into their preferred language.

"We are excited to be introducing RedBrick Mobile to our associates in conjunction with our company-wide Be Fit Challenge, a team based activity challenge being rolled out in late January" says Tamara Storbakken , Benefits Manager at Brookdale Senior Living. "Providing our associates access to RedBrick's programs and challenge engine via their mobile phones will increase engagement by making it easier for them to participate and record activity resulting in small, positive health decisions every day."

About RedBrick Health

RedBrick is a health engagement technology company that helps employers reinvigorate their health & wellness programs. The company combines financial accountability, clinical and behavioral insight, social and game mechanics and powerful data analytics to create a personalized and persuasive experience delivered through web, mobile and live interactions. As a result, RedBrick drives healthy behaviors, better outcomes, and stronger returns on everyone's investment in health. The company serves large, self-insured employers and strategic distribution partners. Visit RedBrick at redbrickhealth.com, read more at healthinnovationblog.com or follow the company at twitter.com/redbrickhealth.

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Ambulance access to be improved across the country

http://www.ntv.co.ke/
The Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation has sent out 43 ambulances to various parts of the country, to boost the provision of emergency health care. The initiative is part of a four billion shilling programme that seeks to initiate comprehensive health care reforms in the country.

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