Payer

As open enrollment season kicks off, here are six insurance industry trends for healthcare consumers and professionals to know, according to Denver Business Journal.

A significant number of Americans who purchased coverage through the Affordable Care Act exchanges last year have learned their policy will cease to exist in 2017, forcing them to find new coverage as options dwindle.

Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare began mailing patients notices about its failed contract negotiations with payer Humana, The Palm Beach Post reports.

CMS is telling individuals with subsidized marketplace health plans who are nearing Medicare eligibility age and individuals simultaneously enrolled in Medicare and marketplace coverage that they should abandon their marketplace plans, Kaiser Health News reports.

Lawmakers in Minnesota called for a special Nov. 9 session to discuss the state's health insurance market, which is poised to offer fewer health plans and see high premium increases next year, Daily Globe reports.

Denver-based customer service software Welltok partnered with Pittsburgh-based payer Highmark to enhance healthcare for Highmark's Medicare Advantage Passport program members. 

Each year, beneficiaries can enroll in Medicare health and prescription drug plans from Oct. 15 through Dec. 7.

Here are 16 contract resolutions and dissolutions that occurred between payers and providers in the past month, beginning with the most recent.

Nashville, Tenn.-based Vanderbilt University Medical Center will no longer be in network with individual health plans sold through the Affordable Care Act marketplace next year, Washington Examiner reports.

Pittsburgh-based Highmark has individually partnered with Conemaugh Health System in Johnstown, Pa., and Lehigh Valley Health Network in Allentown, Pa., to collaboratively develop health plans designed to lower patients' out-of-pocket costs, reports Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.