As insurance companies begin to retreat from unprofitable markets, some residents living in rural parts of the U.S. will have just one insurer's plans to choose from on the government exchanges next year, reports Wall Street Journal.
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Minnetonka, Minn.-based UnitedHealthcare and New Orleans-based Ochsner Health System reached a contract agreement Friday to continue providing in-network service rates to Louisiana residents through January 2017, reports The Advocate.
Patients with Highmark Blue Cross/Blue Shield's Community Blue Flex plan will pay more for care services at UPMC Jameson than they did before the single hospital health system merged with Pittsburgh-based UPMC earlier this month, reports Ellwood City Ledger.
Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield has told 30,000 customers in Iowa it plans to raise their premiums by between 38 and 43 percent next year, reports The Des Moines Register.
Minnetonka, Minn.-based Medica and Hartford, Conn.-based Aetna will compete for consumers on Kansas' government-run insurance exchanges in 2017, repots Star Tribune.
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Deductibles under family insurance plans are less straightforward than those under individual plans. The slight differences between embedded and non-embedded deductibles can cause some families to rack up thousands of dollars in excess out-of-pocket expenses.
Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield and Iowa City-based University of Iowa Health System are introducing a joint venture to offer health insurance in four Iowa counties, according to the Quad-City Times.
Humana will be exiting the Affordable Care Act exchanges in four states — Alabama, Kansas, Virginia and Wisconsin — but in the states it remains, premium prices will likely rise, according to Louisville Business First.
The following insurers made headlines this week. They are listed below, beginning with the most recent.
As part of the broader effort to tie the cost of drugs to their value, Cigna has inked a deal with the makers of two cholesterol-lowering drugmakers to receive extra price discounts from them if the new medications aren't as…