Express Scripts clients also face extortion — The big pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts, which warned last week that it faces an extortion attempt from an alleged data thief, isn’t the only one under the gun. Now it says a “small number” of its clients — pharmacies, presumably — have also received letters that threaten the exposure of individuals’ personal information unless payments are made. [Source: Modern Healthcare]
WellCare fails to post quarterly reports — In the sort of news no health plan wants to report, WellCare says it’s under investigation by so many state and federal authorities that it can’t file scheduled quarterly financial reports. The company said medical costs were up and investment income was down, but didn’t provide any details. [Source: Modern Healthcare]
Ingenix launches consulting unit — The healthcare-software provider created a consulting unit to provide help managing revenue, data integration and various analytic measures. [Source: Health Data Management]
Moody’s cuts outlook for healthcare — The credit-rating agency lowered its outlook for hospitals, health-insurance providers and medical-device makers to “negative” from “stable,” noting that the credit crunch, patient-driven delays for elective treatments and escalating medical costs and insurance premiums mean bad news for everyone. The news is striking mainly because Moody’s now sees bad news everywhere, instead of costs simply being shifted from one sector to another. [Source: WSJ Health Blog]
Employers looking for low premiums, health management — Major employers are asking their health-insurance providers to hold premiums steady and to give them options for encouraging healthy lifestyles among their employees, a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey of 357 CEOs revealed. Employers reported that claims-handling accuracy and timeliness remained the most important factor when choosing a health plan. [Source: Health Plan Week]
Report: Blues plans face membership, investment drops — The financial crisis could squeeze Blues health plans in both membership and investment income, an AIS report suggested. One big problem: Small groups and individuals could well reduce or drop their coverage as renewal time comes around. [Source: AIS Health.com]
Insurers hike premiums for Medicare drug, Advantage plans — Privatized Medicare services have turned out to be less of a bargain than their proponents once claimed, as premiums are rising steeply for both prescription-drug plans and federally subsidized Medicare Advantage accounts. Drug-plan premiums have risen an average of 25 percent this year; one broker says insurers initially set low premiums to rope in seniors and are now “jacking up” their prices. [Source: Detroit Free Press]
Cigna opens “Cigna U.” for online health courses – The big health-insurance company launched an online educational site dubbed “Cigna University” in order to “educate” consumers about the healthcare system. Unsurprisingly, two big advertising/public-relations agencies are behind the campaign: Omnicom’s Doremus and Fleishman-Hillard. [Source: NYT]
UnitedHealth buys muni bonds to support California hospital — UnitedHealth Group purchased $3.2 million in tax-exempt bonds to assist California’s Plumas Hospital District with construction of new facilities, including acute-care, surgical, emergency, diagnostic and imaging departments. [Source: UnitedHealth Group]
Twenty Midwest hospitals launch IT interconnection campaign — Nineteen Kansas Hospitals and one in Nebraska have joined together to computerize their medical records and ensure their interoperability. The USDA has provided $9 million in loans, to be administered by a nonprofit management firm, for medical-records software and planning activities. [Source: Kansas Health Institute]
Google, 3 other PHRs chosen for Medicare pilot program — The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services tapped four personal-health record services – Google Health, HealthTrio, NoMoreClipBoard and PassportMD — to participate in a pilot program for Utah and Arizona Medicare recipients. The program will automatically input Medicare claims information into online health records for recipients in those two states. [Source: Government Health IT]
