Medical Benefits articles from December 2002

Medical Benefits archives from December 2002

Subject index--year end 2002.
December 30, 2002... The subject index that follows reflects articles abridged in Medical Benefits, January through December 2002. See page 2 for information on how to obtain back issues. From all of us on the Medical Benefits staff to all of our valued...

Elections boost GOP health care agenda. (Health Care Policy).
December 15, 2002... "Now that Republicans control both the House and Senate, President Bush s health care plans are expected to take center stage, according to political analysts. A top item on Republicans' list of health care initiatives will be passing a...

Medicare drug plan likely to move. (Health Care Policy).(in new Congress)(Brief Article)
December 15, 2002... "Senate negotiations over a Medicare prescription plan broke down last summer over two concerns: cost and delivery. Several prominent Republicans, emboldened by the election results, said they intended to pursue legislation that would...

Drug industry poised to reap political dividends. (Health Care Policy).(Brief Article)
December 15, 2002... "Few industries campaigned harder than pharmaceutical manufacturers to elect Republicans to the new Congress, and few industries are better positioned to reap the rewards of the election returns, analysts said [shortly after the 2002...

National Post-Election survey regarding health care issues. (Health Care Policy).
December 15, 2002... American Association of Health Plans, November 7, 2002 Editor's note: The American Association of Health Plans is the leading trade group for the managed care industry. "Health maintenance organization (HMO) reform has fallen off the...

2003 Segal health plan cost trend survey. (Health Care Costs).
December 15, 2002... The Segal Company, November 2002 Editor's note: Preliminary findings of this report, focusing on medical trend projections, were published in the November 15, 2002, issue of Medical Benefits. "Forecasted increases in prescription...

Medicare HMOs cut coverage, crank up costs. (Health Care Costs).(Brief Article)
December 15, 2002... "Patients enrolled in Medicare health maintenance organizations (HMOs) face sharply higher premiums and benefit cutbacks next year, as insurers pass along more costs to members in a program originally intended to be a lower-cost alternative...

No one prescription is enough: a multifaceted treatment regime for managing rampant Rx costs. (Health Care Costs).
December 15, 2002... The Segal Company, Executive Letter, November 2002 "Combating prescription drug inflation requires a multifaceted approach [to] cost management. Ensuring that a pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) works to maximize available cost savings...

Patients suffer as agency shields troubled hospitals. (Health Care Industry).(criticism of the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations)(Column)
December 15, 2002... "The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has been empowered by Congress to ensure the quality and safety of hospitals. Operating as a virtual monopoly for monitoring public health care, the commission touts its...

A comparison of the performance of hospital- and physician-owned medical group practices. (Health Care Industry).
December 15, 2002... "Family practice clinics that are hospital-owned have general operating expenses and support staff costs that are very similar to physician-owned clinics. The per-physician and per-provider differences in these costs are small and largely...

Congress extends mental health parity law. (MB Legal Pulse).(Brief Article)
December 15, 2002... The Mental Health Parity Reauthorization Act of 2002 has passed both Houses of Congress. Lobbyists expect President Bush to sign the bill. The update to the Mental Health Parity Act of 1996 extends the law, which was set to expire on Dec. 31,...

Homeland security bill includes protections for health care professionals. (MB Legal Pulse).(Brief Article)
December 15, 2002... Both the House of Representatives (299-121) and the Senate (90-9) have passed a bill to establish the Department of Homeland Security, thus approving the largest reorganization of government since 1947. The new department will absorb the...

CMS named to enforce HIPAA transaction and code set standards. (MB Legal Pulse).(Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services given authority for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 provisions)(Brief Article)
December 15, 2002... U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tommy G. Thompson announced that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will be responsible for enforcing the transaction and code set standards that are part of the...

Asset sale leads to ERISA violation. (MB Legal Pulse).(Employee Retirement Income Security Act)(Brief Article)
December 15, 2002... Section 510 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) says it is unlawful for a person to discharge, discipline, or discriminate against a plan participant or beneficiary for exercising any right under an ERISA-protected plan....

How health plans are using the internet to reach customers: a survey of payor web sites. (Health Care Industry).(Brief Article)
December 15, 2002... Cap Gemini Ernst & Young U.S. LLC, October 2002 "Major themes regarding recent changes and the current state of payors' Web sites are as follows: 1. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations are...

2002 CCH unscheduled absence survey. (Workplace Health & Benefits).(CCH Inc.)
December 15, 2002... "The average per-employee cost of absenteeism climbed to an all-time high of $789 per year in 2002, up from $755 in 2001, while the absenteeism rate declined slightly to 2.1% from 2.2% in 2001 (Figure 4). An average of 5.1% of [a] company's...

2002 benefit plan survey report. (Workplace Health & Benefits).(Brief Article)
December 15, 2002... "Key findings [of our] report--[which] highlights recent developments in costs, contributions and funding arrangement and pinpoints significant trend information--[are as follows]: * Average annual cost per employee for medical coverage:...

10 questions to ask about your disability plan. (Workplace Health & Benefits).(Column)
December 15, 2002... "Disability plans in general, and long-term disability plans in particular, may be the most challenging and complex of all employee benefits. The subjective nature of determining the risk and the long-term nature of the liability mean that...

Employer efforts to slow health-care inflation raise worker privacy concerns. (Workplace Health and Benefits).
December 15, 2002... "Some of the nation's largest employers are borrowing technology from managed care plans that extracts the details of patients' medical records--everything from which doctors they frequent to the drugs they take and even the prescriptions...

America's health: UnitedHealth Foundation State Health Rankings, 2002. (MB Stat).(Brief Article)(Illustration)
December 15, 2002... Editor's note: UnitedHealth Foundation State Health Rankings employs a unique methodology developed and periodically reviewed by a panel of leading public health scholars that weights the contributions of various factors, such as smoking,...

Information management: selected agencies' handling of personal information. (Reference Desk).
December 15, 2002... To obtain government services, members of the public must often provide agencies with personal information, which includes both identifying information (such as name or Social Security number, which can be used to locate or identify someone)...

Employer attitudes and practices affecting health benefits and the uninsured. (Reference Desk).
December 15, 2002... In the current policy framework, the decisions that America's 6 million employers make about offering, pricing, and designing health benefits have a major impact on the number of people with and without health coverage. This Employee Benefit...

2002 capitation survey. (Reference Desk).
December 15, 2002... Published by National Health Information for eight consecutive years, this survey features the most reliable per-member-per-month (PMPM) rate benchmarks available for more than 35 specialties. Rates are also reported for primary care,...