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.

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. 

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.

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. 

Former Cigna employee Jonathan Ferrie will pay more than $33,000 to settle insider trading allegations from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 

Greater access to care and making such care more affordable may be on the horizon for lower-income older adults and people with disabilities after the Department of Health and Human Services and CMS finalized a rule to streamline enrollment in the Medicare Savings Programs. The move was described in a Sept. 18 news release as the most significant HHS action in a decade for such care.

North Carolina lawmakers are proposing tying funding to expand the state's Medicaid program to a bill approving four new casinos in the state, the News and Observer reported Sept. 18. 

Aetna has filed to offer individual health plans on the Maryland ACA exchange in 2024.

New York's Medicaid program paid $388 million for medical services between 2016 and 2022 that should have been paid by federally-funded plans such as Medicare, according to two audits from the state's comptroller published Sept. 14.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas is partnering with Huston-Tillotson University, a historically Black university in Austin, Texas, on a new program aimed at educating doulas. 

Cigna Healthcare is offering employers a supplemental benefit designed to help employees diagnosed with musculoskeletal conditions. 

CVS Health said it will lay off over 500 Aetna employees in the coming weeks, and the company welcomed a new president of Aetna in September. 

UnitedHealthcare and Cigna's prior authorization cuts are steps in the right direction, but the American Medical Association is "careful not to confuse positive developments with major progress," the organization's immediate past president Jack Resneck, MD, said. 

A federal policy change has allowed Nevada reinstate Medicaid coverage to 114,000 residents who lost coverage because they did not return their renewal documentation. 

UnitedHealth Group will move from its headquarters building in Minnetonka, Minn., to Optum's campus in Eden Prairie, Minn., in 2024, the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal reported Sept. 18. 

The National Committee for Quality Assurance has named the best commercial health plans of 2023 based on factors that include care quality, patient satisfaction and efforts to keep improving.

The National Committee for Quality Assurance awarded 24 Medicare Advantage contracts 4.5 star ratings for 2023. 

Thirteen Medicaid plans in seven states received 4.5 star ratings from the National Committee for Quality Assurance.