Payer

Blue Shield of California's board of directors will be majority women for the first time in its 82-year history with the addition of Myechia Minter-Jordan, MD, to its governing body, the insurer said Jan. 6.

A change in how Medicare pays laboratories for COVID-19 diagnostic tests took effect Jan. 1, with a 25 percent pay cut enacted for facilities that take more than two days to complete the tests. 

Aetna got a partial win in a proposed class-action lawsuit that claims the health insurer wrongfully denied coverage for a cancer treatment called proton beam radiation therapy, according to court documents. 

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Tufts Health Plan officially combined Jan. 1. The deal, announced in August 2019, comes about a decade after the organizations attempted to merge in 2011.

Here are nine deals involving health plans that have been announced since Dec. 2, 2020:

Cigna sold its group life, accident and disability insurance business to New York Life in a $6.3 billion deal, according to a Dec. 31 news release.

Centene will acquire behavioral health provider Magellan Health through a merger agreement, the organizations said Jan. 4. 

Nashville, Tenn.-based Envision Healthcare is no longer in UnitedHealthcare's provider network after the organizations couldn't agree on reimbursement rates.

Centene completed its purchase of Pantherx, a Pittsburgh-based pharmacy specializing in drugs to treat rare diseases, the insurer said Dec. 30.

Here are four recent contract agreements or conflicts between payers and providers: