Some payer CEOs are feeling optimistic about the future of marketplace insurance. 

Virginia reinstated around 45,000 people improperly removed from its Medicaid program, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Sept. 20. 

There have been rumblings in Mississippi recently about putting up the concept of Medicaid expansion for open debate in a state where current Gov. Tate Reeves has repeatedly ruled such a policy out.

Cigna is negotiating contracts with health systems for 2024 and adding new benefits and international plan options. 

Payers have been subject to price transparency regulations since July 2022, but no comprehensive action or research has taken place since then to assess compliance, according to research published Sept. 19 in Health Affairs.

New Mexico's superintendent of insurance has ordered payers operating in the state to expand access to behavioral health services, the Albuquerque Journal reported Sept. 19.

CMS is auditing Texas HHS to ensure the state is complying with federal requirements amid the Medicaid redeterminations process, the Austin American-Statesman reported Sept. 20.

From UnitedHealth's plans to move its corporate offices to Optum's campus, to a judge denying Prisma's Health's temporary restraining order request against UnitedHealthcare, here are nine headlines about UnitedHealth Group Becker's has reported since Sept. 8. 

Gold Kidney Health Plan has tapped two UnitedHealth veterans to assist with the company's national growth. 

Salt Lake City-based Select Health, the non-profit insurance subsidiary of Intermountain Health, is partnering with Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Co. to bring lower cost medication offerings to its members. 

More than 85 percent of the nearly 650,000 Medicare TV ad airings over a nine-week stretch during the 2023 open enrollment period were for Medicare Advantage, according to a Sept. 20 report from KFF.

How do the top-rated plans for Medicare Advantage member satisfaction keep members happy? Simplifying healthcare, going above and beyond in customer service and offering strong basic benefits, executives told Becker's. 

Around 1 in 5 adults with Medicare reported high healthcare costs in the last year, qualifying them as underinsured, according to a survey from the Commonwealth Fund. 

Editor's note: This article and its headline were updated Oct. 4 to reflect the fact that HCA and Cigna Healthcare came to a contract agreement that allows Cigna employer-sponsored and Medicare Advantage plan members to access all HCA facilities in Tennessee and Kentucky. Cigna's exchange plans remain out of network with HCA.

There's a lack of commercial coverage for digital healthcare services compared to publicly-funded health plans, which is limiting access to care for more than half of the U.S. population, according to new research published by the AMA on Sept. 19.

Updated COVID-19 boosters have started rolling out to pharmacies nationwide, but some individuals are reporting a high price tag associated with getting a shot.

Elevance Health's pharmacy benefit manager, CarelonRx, is launching a new integrated cost savings program to automatically offer members the lowest price for generic prescription drugs while at their preferred pharmacy.

Bright Health owes CMS $380 million in risk adjustment payments from its shuttered insurance business, the company said Sept. 19. 

Medicare Advantage beneficiaries with Alzheimer's disease and related dementia are 1.4 times more likely to switch to traditional Medicare than their counterparts without the disease, a study published Sept. 15 in JAMA Health Forum found. 

Magellan Health, a subsidiary of Centene, has named Arthur Hennig as senior vice president and chief business officer for payer markets and Sara Pierce as senior vice president and chief business officer for the employer market.