Healthcare plans

“We are making progress, we are on track and we will be ready,” Gary Cohen, director of the Department of Health and Human Services consumer information division, told the Senate Finance Committee at a hearing in Washington.

The federal government has given approval to launch nonprofit, member-run co-ops in 24 states. The CEO of one of these co-ops offered insight into what such organizations will need to survive.

In a Midwest Business Group on Health webinar, representatives from three private health insurance exchanges offered insight into what employers, employees and the overall market can gain from the emerging model.

A new study indicates there could be treatment differences when a patient is seen in person versus an e-visit. While follow-up rates were comparable, physicians in e-visits did order different care.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who is preparing to retire, extended benefits such as child care, commissary privileges and transportation to military bases to same-sex partners of service members.

Lawmakers from Michigan and Wisconsin were among those who called PPACA a good “first step” toward health care coverage for all Americans at a Families USA conference in Washington.

The Family Medical Leave Act was signed into law 20 years ago today, offering an opportunity to dissect its successes and stumbles in offering workers expanded access to protected leave.

The government said the rules announced last week would broaden the types of organizations eligible for an exemption from the birth-control mandate and make it easier for them to escape it.

A study released Monday morning from the ADP Research Institute indicates that while 77% of eligible full-time workers select health coverage, only 15% of eligible part-time workers do the same.

The cost of prescription medication used to treat aging-related conditions has been steadily increasing over the past five years and could soon overtake spending on chronic conditions.

CDHPs control health care inflation with no deleterious effects on members’ health or financial position, maintains contributing editor Andrew Sykes.

Focusing on cost alone ignores an important half of the health care equation: good health, says Truven’s Dr. Ray Fabius.

Its time to take a closer look at employee assistance programs .

The overall pace of investment prompted Forrester to warn insurers making only limited mobile efforts soon will lose competitive ground to insurers more aggressively pursuing the technology.

“Too few adults are taking advantage of protection from vaccines, leaving themselves and those around them at greater risk for vaccine-preventable diseases,” says one government health expert.

Americans are again taking advantage of health savings accounts and health reimbursement arrangements. According to new research, average account balances across the nation in 2012 were up 4% from the year before.

Americans are again taking advantage of health savings accounts and health reimbursement arrangements. According to new research, average account balances across the nation in 2012 were up 4% from the year before.

Doctors are increasingly taking on more patients to compensate for cuts in payments from health insurers, researchers say, and PPACA is expected to increase the volume.

Ninety-eight percent of American businesses have fewer than 100 employees and, according to new numbers from LIMRA, the number of small employers offering benefits is at its lowest level in 20 years.

Oklahoma opposed a request by the U.S. that a judge dismiss the state’s lawsuit challenging President Obama’s 2010 health-care reform legislation.