Health Insurance UK Releases Two Complimentary Health Related Tools for Website and Blog Owners

May 20, 2015, 2:13 am

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The Newly-Released Meal Calorie Counter and Daily Calorie Calculator will Work in All Modern Browsers

London, UK (PRWEB) May 20, 2015

The founders of Health Insurance UK, a website that is devoted to helping people find the best and most affordable health insurance policy, are pleased to announce that they have just released two new and free health related tools for website and blog owners.

As a company spokesperson for Health Insurance UK noted, website and blog owners do not have to sign up to receive the free health tools; all they need to do is simply design how they want the tools to look and then paste the code onto their website or blog so visitors can access them.

“These tools work in all modern browsers and are mobile friendly,” the spokesperson said.

The first tool, called the Meal Calorie Counter, shows website visitors how many calories are in certain types of food, as well as the fat and sugar content. The data is pulled from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Nutrient Database, so website and blog owners can rest assured that the content is accurate.

To use the Meal Calorie Counter, people merely need to enter then select the food they want nutritional information for, and then enter the quantity of the food, and the tool will show them all of the aforementioned information.

“The font and size of the text can be fully customized along with the color of the tool so it seamlessly integrates with any webpage; it’s just a simple copy and paste into the webpage’s HTML or CMS post,” the spokesperson said, adding that for people who don’t realize just how unhealthy some foods are, the tool will help educate visitors to websites and blogs about the hidden calories in foods.

The second health related tool is called the Daily Calorie Calculator. This simple tool can also be embedded into any webpage by pasting in the HTML code or CMS post.

After entering in their height, weight, age and how active they are, the Daily Calorie Calculator will use the Harris–Benedict equation to tell them approximately how many calories they should be consuming on a daily basis. Instead of having to figure out complicated formulas, the new tool does all of the math for people.

“Health Insurance UK encourages healthy life styles for all and hopes bloggers and website owners will make use of these free tools to help educate their visitors,” the company spokesperson said.

About Health Insurance UK:

Health Insurance UK helps people find the health insurance policy that is right for them. They are based in the UK but make tools and software that promotes a healthy lifestyle globally. For more information, please visit http://www.healthinsuranceuk.net/ Reported by PRWeb 18 hours ago.

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Stride Health Raises $13M To Be The HR Platform For Freelancers

May 20, 2015, 5:20 am

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 Looking to provide health insurance to the 53 million Americans who don’t get benefits from their employers, Stride Health has raised $13 million in new funding. Venrock led the Series A round, with participation from Fidelity Biosciences and previous investor NEA, which brings Stride’s total venture funding to $17.5 million. Read More Reported by TechCrunch 15 hours ago.

31M Left Underinsured by High Healthcare Costs: Report

May 20, 2015, 6:44 am

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Roughly one-quarter of people with health insurance are paying deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses that are so high they are considered underinsured, a new study has found. Reported by Newsmax 14 hours ago.

Does Having Grandchildren Persuade Women to Retire Early?

May 20, 2015, 5:38 am

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I am a grandmother. I don't just admit it, I am proud of it. My first grandchild was born when I was fifty five, which is relatively young for American professional women, but I had four children by age 30. I also run an investment firm. You can imagine, then, how interested I might be in a study published last month called, "Retirement Timing of Women and the Role of Care Responsibilities for Grandchildren."Authors Lumsdaine and Vermeer analyzed longitudinal data from over 47,000 women and found that the arrival of a grandchild, holding all other factors constant, raises by 8.5% the likelihood that this woman will retire. That impact increases 1.5% with each additional grandchild. Of women 58-61 years old, the percent working full time was 43% for those with no grandchildren, 37% for grandmothers not caring for kids, and 29% for those who were caring for children. These dramatic differences were similar for the cohort in their early fifties.While, as expected, women providing significant hours of childcare were more likely to be retired, when Lumsdaine and Vermeer analyzed the data, this was not a statistically significant factor that influenced women to seek retirement. Factors that did influence retirement were a fully vested pension and health insurance coverage. Higher income was also positively associated with retirement, as was poor health. Conversely, flexible work hours encouraged grandmothers to continue to work.When I mentioned this study to my friend, MIT biology professor Susan Lindquist, she reminded me of the "Grandmother Hypothesis" which posits that the reason women outlive men is because there is an evolutionary advantage to having Grandma around to help care for the littlest generation. Studies of multiple cultures with short life spans show that populations are only able to sustain themselves if women beyond childbearing age are available to help care for the young children of their own offspring. Susan asserted that she herself would be "moorless" without work, but, as a biologist, she understands that grandmothers have been essential for human survival. That theory, while well documented, doesn't answer the question of why and if well-educated, successful, professional women leave their hard-earned jobs once their own children are parents.I thought about whether I had considered retiring after my first grandson was born. Both because I love my job and also because he was living across the Atlantic, I never seriously contemplated retiring. I did travel to Denmark at least every two months for over a year, often taking only a day off for a quick visit. If I was unable to do this, would I have retired? Perhaps, but I do have flexibility, in line with the study's finding that flexibility keeps women in the workforce longer.I asked my professional friends who have grandchildren how they feel about this issue. Although their numbers are small, none have chosen to retire. They all reported being grateful that their jobs allowed them the option of taking time to be with their grandchildren, or travel to vacation with them. Several mentioned that they are proud of the fact that they can help their grandchildren financially.Job satisfaction probably plays a key role in their thinking. Several high-ranking professional women I asked about this topic said that their job gives them great satisfaction and purpose. One friend told me she would feel "lost" without her role as a high ranking executive at an insurance company.While the earnings effect is statistically significant as influencing women's retirement decision, I asked Professor Lumsdaine whether they measured different ranges of income to discern changes in likelihood to retire as compensation increases. It is possible that the positive influence plateaus at a certain salary level and then possibly declines for women at high paying executive jobs. This paper did not examine that possibility, although the authors are continuing to analyze the data to understand trends among different cohorts of income, education, and job description.If female executives do actually retire at a higher rate once they have grandchildren, it would be worth studying how professional women with grown children feel about their own familial role in the years when their children were young. Women of my generation, particularly in business, often took very little time off as we moved through our careers. We juggled and balanced, scribbling out everyone's schedules on airplane napkins to get one more household chore done before arriving home from a trip, often daydreaming of the ultimate nirvana; a twenty-six-hour day. These women may now feel, twenty-five or thirty years later, that they can recapture that time with their grandchildren what they never had with their own children.The Lumsdaine and Vermeer paper suggests that flexibility policies for grandmothers may be a key component in keeping them in the work force, rather than policies that focus on increasing maternity leave or making childcare more accessible - two factors that had no impact on grandmothers' likelihood of retiring. But since both maternity leave and childcare accessibility do affect mothers' work satisfaction, perhaps increasing them will keep those women in the workforce years down the road, when they become grandmothers. After all, if young working mothers today do not find adequate time to be with their families, they may satisfy that desire to find out what they missed by retiring when their own children have offspring, repeating the cycle. Policy makers, therefore, should press on - for mothers and children of all ages.
This post first appeared on Harvard Business Review.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 15 hours ago.

Manassas Man Gets 15 Months in Prison for Stealing $370,000

May 20, 2015, 2:40 pm

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Patch Fairfax City, VA -- He diverted funds from health insurance companies to his own bank account, say federal authorities. Reported by Patch 6 hours ago.

Kentucky GOP Gubernatorial Primary Too Close To Call

May 20, 2015, 8:49 am

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Businessman Matt Bevin led Kentucky Agricultural Commissioner James Comer by just 83 votes with all the precincts reporting in the state's Republican gubernatorial primary Tuesday night.

Bevin's lead of less than one-tenth of a percentage point out of the more than 214,000 votes cast led Comer to declare his intent to request a recanvass, meaning election officials will check printed vote totals against figures sent to the state's Board of Elections. The secretary of state's office announced that a recanvass will be conducted May 28. If Comer demands a full recount, the state's law requires him to post a bond to pay for the cost.

The other two candidates in the party, businessman and former Louisville Councilman Hal Heiner and former state Supreme Court Justice Will T. Scott, conceded earlier in the night.

Waiting in the wings is the Democratic nominee, Attorney General Jack Conway, who comfortably won his own race Tuesday. History is on his side: 22 of the state's 28 governors since 1900 have been Democrats.

The governorship is up for grabs because the Democratic incumbent, Steve Beshear, is term-limited. Since the state legislature is split -- Democrats have held onto the House, while Republicans have the Senate -- the stakes are particularly high for Republicans hoping to gain more control over the legislative and executive branches.

The Republican candidates' four-way race has been called one of the dirtiest in the Bluegrass State's history. In recent weeks, it was marked by domestic abuse allegations leveled against Comer by a former girlfriend, Marilyn Thomas. Comer vociferously denied the allegations and accused Heiner's campaign of spreading them.

Heiner and Comer were considered the early favorites. Comer is the only current executive officeholder of the field, while Heiner's personal wealth allowed him to outspend his competitors on television advertisements. But as the abuse allegations came to light, Bevin pitched himself as the conservative alternative.

Thomas' allegations characterized Comer as a physically and mentally abusive boyfriend who controlled and threatened Thomas and her family when the two dated in the 1990s and were students at Western Kentucky University. Certain elements of Thomas' story were confirmed by two of her former college roommates. Heiner has denied that his campaign was involved in spreading the story -- but after learning a blogger who had written about the allegations had been in contact with the husband of the person running for lieutenant governor on his ticket, Heiner issued a statement saying, "I personally apologize to Jamie Comer if anyone associated with my campaign is involved."

While Democrats said the ugliness of the Republican primary benefited their side, Republicans insisted that it was unclear what impact, if any, the nastiness had on the race.

Though there was much discord among the Republicans concerning their personal backgrounds, the primary wasn't marked by significant policy differences: All four candidates opposed increasing education spending and the state's minimum wage. They also vowed they would dismantle Kynect, the state's health insurance exchange, although Kentucky has seen the nation's second-largest drop in the percentage of residents who are uninsured.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) crushed Bevin in last year's primary for McConnell's seat. Bevin garnered just 35 percent of the vote, compared to McConnell's 60 percent. If the primary race is called for Bevin, it remains to be seen whether the state's Republican establishment will coalesce around him for the general election, given the bitter nature of last year's race, during which establishment groups strongly supported McConnell and tea party groups backed Bevin. In that race, Bevin also came under criticism for speaking to a pro-cockfighting rally.-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 11 hours ago.

Strong Lineup of Panelists and Moderators Slated to Present at Disruptivate! Healthcare 2015

May 20, 2015, 9:09 am

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Today the hosts of Disruptivate! Healthcare 2015 released the full details of the speakers and panelists they enlisted for their event, scheduled to take place this Friday, May 22nd, at the Wentworth by the Sea Hotel in New Castle, NH.

Portsmouth, NH (PRWEB) May 20, 2015

Today the hosts of Disruptivate! Healthcare 2015 released the full details of the speakers and panelists they enlisted for their event, scheduled to take place this Friday, May 22nd, at the Wentworth by the Sea Hotel in New Castle, NH. The list is impressive from top to bottom.

The highly anticipated event will be hosted by the New England Innovation Center (NEIC), eCoast, the Greater Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce, and the NH High Tech Council.

Jeff Feingold, editor of New Hampshire Business Review, and Doug Banks, executive editor of Boston Business Journal, will each moderate two panel discussions at the conference this Friday. They will lend their keen business knowledge and extensive journalistic experience to lead panels of "disruptive innovators" in the healthcare sector.

A parade of impressive panelists follows. Nick Toumpas, Commissioner of the NH Department of Health and Human Services, will serve on a Feingold-moderated panel to discuss unique and innovative methods of healthcare delivery. He'll share the stage with Max Puyanic, co-founder and co-CEO of ConvenientMD, Dr. Teresa Leverett, founder of Freedom Family Practice and proponent of the direct primary care model, as well as Steven Normandin, experienced telemedicine guru and president of AMD Global Telemedicine.

The keynote presentation will be given by serial med-tech entrepreneur, Jeff Carlisle. Carlisle is the former VP of Everything for Dean Kamen at DEKA Research and Development, and he's the founder and CEO of a number of medical-related technology startups. He has made significant contributions to the technology of intravenous pumps, electrocardiography, and electronic medical records. Carlisle will also sit on a Doug Banks-led panel dedicated to the discussion of disruptive innovation in healthcare.

Alongside Carlisle on that panel will sit Dan Hogan, co-founder and CEO of Medalogix, who is flying up from Nashville, TN to participate in the conference. Hogan has been a featured speaker at TEDx Nashville, and is recognized as a thought leader in the healthcare tech space.

Marilinda Garcia, former eight-year NH state representative and 2014 U.S. Congress runner-up, will share some of her legislative experience on a panel dedicated to tackling the healthcare cost crisis. Jo Porter, Interim Director of the Institute for Health Policy and Practice at the University of New Hampshire and the co-chair of the national All-Payer Claims Database (APCD) Council, will share her 15+ years of experience in health data and healthcare improvement.

Other panelists include Dr. Moby Parsons, Dennis Donnermeyer, Garry Welch, Stephen Pollak, Mark Galvin, and Andy Quinn. All of them sport impressive résumés and promise valuable insights for the audience. The full list of panelists and their bios is posted on the D!H15 website at http://www.DisruptivateHealthcare.com.

Over 250 people are expected to attend, including entrepreneurs, inventors, engineers, medical professionals and managers, doctors and nurses, business owners and managers, human resource professionals, health insurance brokers and administrators, civic servants, private investors, angels, venture capitalists, tech junkies, journalists, and a great number of people and organizations simply interested in disruptive innovation in healthcare.

Tickets are $149 at the door, but they are currently available online at an early registration rate of $129. For special rates for students and legislators, request information at disruptivate(at)ne-ic(dot)com. Tickets include all summit events, including all panels, keynote, Disruptivator to Watch presentations, as well as Wentworth-catered breakfast and lunch buffets. To reserve tickets to this exciting event, interested parties should visit http://www.DisruptivateHealthcare.com.

For more information on Disruptivate! Healthcare 2015, please visit http://www.DisruptivateHealthcare.com, or contact Mark Galvin, who is the Managing Partner of the New England Innovation Center. Reported by PRWeb 11 hours ago.

Stride Health raises another $13M to take health plan recommendations national

May 20, 2015, 11:59 am

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The San Francisco-based company specializes in providing health insurance recommendations to people who have traditionally had trouble getting covered affordably -- freelancers and other self-employed people. Reported by VentureBeat 8 hours ago.

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If Your Doctor Drives The Following Cars, He Is Probably A Criminal

May 20, 2015, 12:34 pm

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If your doctor drives any, and certainly all of the cars listed below, there is a virtually 100% certainty said doctor is a criminal...

... just like the above noted "Doctor" Xiulu Ruan, M.D., who is a doctor only by title: his real descrption is "legal" drug dealer, one who provides pain medication to drug addicted junkies for a (high) fee, and who is a favorite brand ambassador of such "legal' drug makers as Insys Therapeutics, maker of the Subsys 400 microgram Fentanyl anti-pain spray.

"Dr." Ruan, together with his business partner John Patrick Couch, M.D, were arrested earlier today on drug and fraud charges (full indictment pdf here) as part of an FBI and DEA raid of Physicians' Pain Specialists of Alabama Pain Center on Springhill Avenue and Airport Boulevard in Mobile. The practice, together with the adjacent pharmacy, C&R Pharmacy, was all part of a wildly profitably pain drug distribution ring.

The cars listed above, and which have now been confiscated by the state of Alabama, are what Ruan purchased with the spoils of fraudulently selling pain drugs to starved junkies, all under legal pretenses (the Pain Specialists website notes that on 4/18/2013, "Xiulu Ruan, MD, a fellowship trained physician, has broken his own world record of having 7 medical board/subspecialty board certifications."), and then padding his reimbursement demands from benefits programs.

Turns out Ruan's 7 'record' certifications were not enough and now he is assured of spending lenghty time in prison.

Why?

According to the charging document, Ruan and Couch, "conspired with each other and with others... to knowingly, willfully, and unlawfully distribute and dispense, and cause to be distributed and dispensed, Schedule II controlled substances including but not limited to: Oxycodone, Oxymorphone, Hydromorphone, Morphine, Fenantul, and Methadone, outside the usual course of professional practice and not for a legitimate medial purpose."

But for a perfectly legitimate business purpose: to make "tons of money", by first getting patients hooked to pain medications, and then stuffing them full of near lethal doses of said drugs, all of which the "doctors" would then get reimbursement for, while making both themselves and the manufacturing company millions of dollars:

According to the Grand Jury charge, "the objective of the conspiracy was to unlawfully increase the amount of reimbursement received from healthcare benefits programs."

But that's just the tip of the iceberg.

The real crime in question lies not so much with "doctors" Ruan and Couch who were merely low-level drug distributors, but with drug manufacturing and wholesale companies, particularly such as the abovementioned Insys makes of Subsys, which is the topic of a recent investigative piece by the Boyd Roddy of the Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation titled "Insys Therapeutics and The New “Killing It."

This is what Roddy had to say about INSY, a $2 billion market cap company, whose story provides a good glimpse into just how biotech companies have shortcutted their way to blockbuster stardom in the last few years:



Insys Therapeutics is doing pretty darn well. The company has had a remarkable level of financial success and its soaring stock price has made it a darling on Wall Street.

 

But that level of growth ought to warrant a raised eyebrow; going to over $222 million sales from about $15.5 million in just two years without inventing something like a better search engine is no mean feat. Fentanyl, after all, has been around for many years and while Subsys is the only spray version available, several of Insys’s competitors are well-established and better capitalized, with sales forces that reach all 50 states.

 

While details on the particulars of the breakthrough pain medication market are hard to find, or at least details that aren't self-serving management estimates, veteran sales staff from Insys and other pharmaceutical companies put its growth prospects at roughly 10% a year. If that's true, and the company is selling to oncologists then growth possibilities for Insys should be a function of that plus whatever they can take away from its larger competitors. Many companies would be happy for those odds.

 

*But Insys grew north of 100%, implying that whatever organic growth they are getting is being aided by a whole lot of doctors who have grown profoundly fond of an expensive drug that brings an acre of governmental red-tape with it and that one of the largest pharmacy benefit managers will no longer touch. *

 

The question then becomes "How?" and "Why?"

 

A SIRF investigation into Insys reveals that this growth has come at a remarkable price: Food and Drug Administration data shows that Subsys is proving lethal to a growing number of patients, many of whom, like Carolyn Markland, are taking it for so-called off-label indications, such as headaches and back pain.



For more answers of what really takes place every day in the corrupt underbelly of America's healthcare industry, the linked 4,100-word piece is a must read for anyone with even a passing interest in not only said industry, but for a spoiler alert, one need to only look at this table of the highest reimbursed doctors doctors for the 2013-2014 period under TRICARE, the *U.S. military’s primary health insurance plan*, one which represents 9.5 million people or 3% of the US population.

 

So, here's to you, Doctor Charlatan Xiulu Ruan: we hope prescribing millions in overpriced, potentially deadly pain medication to US army vets was worth it, and that the 13 sports cards you purchased on their hurting backs will either keep you warm at night, and keeps Bubba away during those long nights at the Talladega Federal Correctional Institution.

Source: US Indictment against John Patrick Couch and Xiulu Ruan Reported by Zero Hedge 8 hours ago.

Another health insurance data hack announced Wednesday

May 20, 2015, 1:11 pm

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An insurance company that covers Northern Virginia, among other states, announced a June 2014 hack of data affecting more than 1 million subscribers on Wednesday. Read more here: http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20150520/NEWS/150529986?utm_source=modernhealthcare&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20150520-NEWS-150529986&utm_campaign=mh-alert Reported by dailypress.com 7 hours ago.

Insurers' High-Deductible Plans Leave Growing Numbers of Americans Without Needed Care

May 20, 2015, 2:28 pm

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A dozen or so years ago, a small group of wealthy corporate insurance executives decided their customers were not paying nearly enough for the medical care they received. How else to explain the fact that managed care -- which they had touted as a silver bullet just a decade earlier -- had failed miserably at controlling health care costs.

Those executives came to embrace as the newest silver bullet a strategy incubated at the National Center for Policy Analysis, a Dallas-based libertarian think tank that advocates for fewer government regulations and more individual responsibility. The strategy that emerged in the early 2000s was what the insurance industry called consumer driven health plans -- CDHPs for short. These plans are superficially appealing because the premiums are lower. But that obscures a defining and central feature of CDHPs: a requirement that folks enrolled in them, regardless of income, pay a substantial sum from their wallets for medical care every year before their insurance coverage kicks in.

In some ways at least, CDHPs are about less insurance. With every passing year, under the industry's strategy, insurance companies would be paying a smaller percentage of medical claims while their customers would be paying more because of the high deductibles.

Fast forward to 2015 and the effects of that strategy are playing out -- but not to the benefit of consumers. Instead, ever-increasing numbers of Americans are finding themselves in the ranks of the underinsured.

The latest evidence came last Thursday in a study released by the left-of-center Families U.S.A. Using data collected by the Urban Institute's Health Reform Monitoring Survey, the group found that more than one of every four adults enrolled in these CDHPs went without needed care because they didn't have the cash to pay for it.

The most common types of care they skipped, according to Families U.S.A.'s report, were medical tests and treatments and follow-up care.

Some critics of high deductible plans have characterized them as "blunt instruments" because they typically are not adjusted to take an individual's or family's income into consideration. Someone making $50,000 a year has to pay the same amount out of his or her own pocket, before insurance kicks in, as someone making $250,000.

So it should come as no surprise that Families U.S.A.'s study found that lower- to middle-income adults were the most adversely affected by the steady growth of CDHPs, with almost one out of three (32.3%) Americans reporting they skipped needed health care because they couldn't afford it.

"Too many lower- and middle-income consumers face deductibles that are likely unaffordable relative to their incomes and that could create barriers to them getting the care they need," the authors of the Families U.S.A. study noted.

Other studies have found that the average deductible in CDHPs has been increasing every year and that the rate of increase has exceeded the growth of household income. There is no reason to think that trend won't continue. So future studies like the one released last week undoubtedly will show that the percentage of American families skipping needed care will be even higher.

Already, 30 percent of American adults enrolled in CDHPs had what Families U.S.A. called "exceedingly high" deductibles of $3,000 or more. It is not at all unusual for individual and family deductibles to exceed $5,000. Many people enroll in such plans because they can't afford the premiums of plans with lower deductibles. Others likely pay scant attention to the deductibles or enroll in CDHP's and then pray they won't get sick or injured.

As Families U.S.A. Executive Ron Pollack noted, while the Affordable Care Act has enabled millions of Americans to find health insurance with premiums that won't bust their budgets, many of the newly insured unfortunately are finding themselves poorly insured because of the high deductibles.

Pollack, whose organization was a leading advocate of health care reform, called the Affordable Care Act "a huge, historic success in expanding health coverage." But the fact that increasing numbers of Americans are in plans that make care unaffordable because of high out-of-pocket obligations is something Pollack said "needs to be fixed."

Among the fixes Families U.S.A. is proposing: A requirement that some of the silver plans insurers sell on the health insurance exchanges have lower upfront cost sharing for primary care, outpatient services and prescription drugs.

That would mean, of course, that insurers would have to cover more of their enrollees' medical claims than they are currently required to do. If they did, it would, of course, cut into profits. So while it's a worthy idea, and one that would mean that fewer Americans would have to skip on needed care, it is not one that the small group of wealthy corporate insurance executives that gave us CDHPs in the first place will likely agree to.

This post was published initially by the Center for Public Integrity. You can find more about Wendell Potter here.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 6 hours ago.

CareFirst Hack Exposed Data on 1.1 Million Customers

May 20, 2015, 2:11 pm

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CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield sells health insurance in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. Reported by msnbc.com 6 hours ago.

Colorado health insurance exchange proposes increasing staff size

May 20, 2015, 2:23 pm

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Connect for Health Colorado staff recommend the state health insurance exchange add 23 full-time positions next year, a 43 percent increase in the current level of 53 slots. Reported by Denver Post 6 hours ago.

Court won't temporarily exempt Notre Dame from providing birth control in health insurance

May 20, 2015, 4:28 pm

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A federal appeals court has rejected the University of Notre Dame's request to temporarily be exempt from a provision in the Affordable Care Act that requires the Catholic school's insurance providers to cover the costs of contraceptives for students and staff. Reported by FOXNews.com 4 hours ago.

Court Won't Exempt Notre Dame From Birth Control Provision

May 20, 2015, 4:35 pm

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Court won't temporarily exempt Notre Dame from providing birth control in health insurance Reported by ABCNews.com 4 hours ago.

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Obama’s Game of Chicken with the Supreme Court

May 20, 2015, 9:40 pm

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Sometime next month, the Supreme Court will decide King v. Burwell, and the conventional wisdom about the stakes in the case appears to have shifted. The case represents a challenge to the core of the Affordable Care Act. The plaintiffs charge that, based on a strict reading of single sentence (actually, four words), federal health-insurance subsidies should be available only in the sixteen states (and the District of Columbia) that set up their own health exchanges, or marketplaces. This means, they argue, that there should be no subsidies for people who now buy insurance on the federal exchange in the other thirty-four states. At the moment, about thirteen million people receive those subsidies. Reported by The New Yorker 23 hours ago.

Telemedicine Added to The IHC Group’s Diverse Portfolio of Supplemental Health Products

May 21, 2015, 12:02 am

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IHC’s new Telemedicine product bundles four benefits in one plan for individual or family. These benefits include: telephone or online video consultation, healthcare cost management, Best Health website access, and vision discount program at $12.50 for individual or $14.95 per month for family.

Minneapolis, MN (PRWEB) May 21, 2015

\Meeting the needs of the increasingly technology savvy consumers, IHC Specialty Benefits, a member of the The IHC Group, announced today the addition of Telemedicine to its line of ancillary health products.

IHC’s new Telemedicine product bundles four benefits in one plan for individual or family. These benefits include: telephone or online video consultation, patient advocacy, Best Health website access, and vision discount program:· Connect to a national network of board certified doctors at any time of the day, just $15 per call. With an average of 15-years of medical experience, on-call physicians will deliver reliable consultation and prescription, if necessary, within minutes to consumers.
· Patient advocacy is provided on behalf of the consumer in the event of large out-of-pocket expenses associated with high-deductible health plans, out-of-network charges or expensive prescription drugs.
· Vision discount program for Telemedicine members includes significant savings on eye exams, lenses, frames and additional eyewear options.
· Best Health is an informative website designed to help consumers make healthy lifestyle choices and stay informed on common medical conditions. Consumers can learn about fitness trends, discover new recipes and diet tips, as well as watch videos about nutrition and fitness.

“We all lead very full lives juggling many things, including rising healthcare costs and time management. What to do when you’re on a business trip and feel a sudden fever come on, or your child is sick in the middle of the night? A safe and speedy solution is to get a reliable consultation over the phone, saving time and cost,” said Dave Keller, Chief Marketing Officer of IHC Specialty Benefits. “Our goal is to develop products that make sense and add value for our consumers and our new Telemedicine is a must-have for today’s hardworking generation stretched for both time and money.”

For more information on the new Telemedicine, please contact your IHC representative or local insurance advisor. You can also visit http://www.healthedeals.com/temporary-short-term-health-insurance for additional information.

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About The IHC Group
The IHC Group is an organization of insurance carriers and marketing and administrative affiliates that has been providing life, health, disability, medical stop-loss and specialty insurance solutions to groups and individuals for over 30 years. Members of The IHC Group include Independence Holding Company (NYSE:IHC), American Independence Corp. (NASDAQ: AMIC), Standard Security Life Insurance Company of New York, Madison National Life Insurance Company, Inc. and Independence American Insurance Company. Each insurance carrier in The IHC Group has a financial strength rating of A- (Excellent) from A.M. Best Company, Inc., a widely recognized rating agency that rates insurance companies on their relative financial strength and ability to meet policyholder obligations. (An A++ rating from A.M. Best is its highest rating.) Collectively, the companies in The IHC Group provide insurance coverage to more than one million individuals and groups. For more information about The IHC Group, visit http://www.IHCGroup.com

About IHC Specialty Benefits, Inc.
IHC Specialty Benefits, doing business as Health eDeals Insurance Solutions, is a full-service marketing and distribution company that focuses on small employer, individual and consumer products. IHC Specialty Benefits markets products through general agents online, telebrokerage, advisor centers, private label and directly to consumers. For more information about IHC Specialty Benefits, visit http://www.IHCGroup.com Reported by PRWeb 21 hours ago.

Research and Markets: Global Health Insurance Market Trends and Opportunities 2015-2019

May 21, 2015, 2:40 am

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DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/rjwz8z/global_health) has announced the addition of the "Global Health Insurance Market: Trends and Opportunities (2015-2019)" report to their offering. The report titled Global Health Insurance Market: Trends & Opportunities (2014-2019) provides an insight into the health insurance industry along with the study of regional markets including the US, European Union, Asia Pacific and the Middle East. The Reported by Business Wire 18 hours ago.

New AIS Report Offers Case Study of Anthem’s Innovative Oncology Value-Based Payment Program

May 21, 2015, 3:10 am

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Now available from Atlantic Information Services, the latest report in AIS’s Management Insight Series outlines Anthem’s Cancer Care Quality Program and reviews the insurer’s expectations for outcomes and savings, as well as lessons learned in implementing the initiative.

Washington, DC (PRWEB) May 21, 2015

With the average cost of oncology drugs skyrocketing, and thousands of people in the United States dying from cancer each week, some health insurance carriers — including Anthem, Inc. — have turned to evidence-based pathways in an effort to make sure patients get the best care that is also cost-effective. Now available from Atlantic Information Services, Inc. (AIS), Anthem’s Cancer Care Quality Program: Pathways to Improve Care and Reduce Costs — the latest report in AIS’s Management Insight Series — discusses the specifics of the insurer’s Cancer Care Quality Program, its expectations in terms of outcomes and cost control, lessons it has learned and changes already made in the initial plans.

Filled with insights on the program’s successful implementation — directly from Anthem’s medical director of oncology — the report provides valuable, practical intelligence on topics such as:· The motivation behind the Anthem program;
· The insurer’s original plan, and how the pathways already have expanded since the program started;
· The specifics of how the program works, including how providers know if a treatment regimen is on-pathway;
· The role providers play in the pathways;
· How Anthem has communicated with providers as it rolls out the program; and
· How this program compares with other pathways programs, and the pros and cons of different models.

Anthem’s Cancer Care Quality Program: Pathways to Improve Care and Reduce Costs also includes copies of templates for physicians to use to chart pathways for patients, prepared by Anthem and its subsidiary AIM Specialty Health.

For more information on Anthem’s Cancer Care Quality Program: Pathways to Improve Care and Reduce Costs, including a full table of contents, visit http://aishealth.com/marketplace/anthems-cancer-care-quality-program.

AIS’s Management Insight Series is designed to provide practical solutions to complex business challenges with the help of the industry’s most insightful advisors and managers. See a full list of titles in this series at http://aishealth.com/marketplace/insight-series.

About AIS
Atlantic Information Services, Inc. (AIS) is a publishing and information company that has been serving the health care industry for more than 25 years. It develops highly targeted news, data and strategic information for managers in hospitals, health plans, medical group practices, pharmaceutical companies and other health care organizations. AIS products include print and electronic newsletters, websites, looseleafs, books, strategic reports, databases, webinars and conferences. Learn more at http://AISHealth.com. Reported by PRWeb 17 hours ago.

1.1 Million CareFirst User Records Hacked

May 21, 2015, 5:04 am

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The CareFirst health insurance company has announced on its website that almost 1.1 million user records have been stolen after their network was a victim of a cyber-attack. Their company had records... Reported by I4U News 15 hours ago.