The Wall Street Journal on Friday examined how the “significance” the fiscal year 2007 budget proposal that Bush plans to announce on Monday is “dwarfed by one daunting fact”: 84% of the federal budget is “essentially committed” to interest on the federal deficit, defense and homeland security and entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid...
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Humana (NYSE: HUM), the 6th largest U.S. insurer by market capitalization, announced today 4th quarter profits rose 34% on the strength of its Medicare Advantage plans, however shares fell after the company did not raise its 2006 outlook and missed revenue expectations. In the 4th quarter enrollment in Humana’s Medicare Advantage plans rose 48%...
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On a January 24, 2006 conference call Craig Miner and Lawrence Kocot issued guidance on how plans should and should not be determining drug coverage under Parts B and D. “Part D plans should not be requiring a Part B rejection as their first step before they’ll start thinking about covering it under Part...
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We have stayed away from repeating the never ending list of media stories about the failure of the Part D implementation…however Matthew Holt at TPM Café has done a very good job reviewing a Kaiser Family Foundation round table discussing the challenges of the Part D implementation. There is both a video and transcript...
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The Los Angeles Times is reporting that California and four other states plan to file a lawsuit against the federal government alleging the formulas used to calculate the costs of duel eligible drug benefits that states will pay back to the federal government are inflated. According to the Times, at least 15 governors have...
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HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt today released a one-month progress report on the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit that takes a hard look at what is working and what needs to improve. The report details action steps HHS and health plans are taking, such as extending transition coverage for a beneficiary’s current drugs to 90 days...
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Implementation of the National Provider Identifier(NPI) is moving forward. We should stay on top of the current implementation calendar and recent CMS guidance. Here is a link to the CMS site where there is a letter clarifying CMSs expectations on determining subparts to covered entities who should bill CMS using unique NPIs. Here is...
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