The following payers made headlines this week, beginning with the most recent.
Payer
Sixty-three counties nationwide are expected to lack a health insurer selling policies on the 2018 ACA exchanges as of Sept. 13, CMS said.
Indianapolis-based Anthem is contemplating its 2018 participation in some states' ACA marketplaces as filing deadlines approach later this month, according to a Chicago Tribune report.
The U.S. uninsured rate dropped 0.3 percentage points between 2015 and 2016 to 8.8 percent, or 28.1 million Americans, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report.
Centene Corp., a managed care and commercial payer in St. Louis, will acquire Fidelis Care, a Rego Park, N.Y.-based nonprofit managed Medicaid and Medicare plan, for $3.75 billion.
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Several national health insurers pledged assistance before and in the wake of Hurricane Irma's landfall.
The five largest U.S. commercial health insurers — Aetna, Anthem, Cigna, Humana and UnitedHealth Group — were mentioned on social media and in publications 26,700 times during the last week of August, according to a talkwalker report.
Becker's Hospital Review reported these five contract resolutions and dissolutions between payers and providers in the past two weeks, beginning with the most recent.
Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic Health System providers in Wisconsin and Minnesota are now considered in-network for Marshfield, Wis.-based Security Health Plan's policyholders.
The national average annual premium for individual coverage under employer health plans was $6,101 in 2016, according to SHADAC, a health policy research center affiliated with Minneapolis-based University of Minnesota School of Public Health.