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Potential Delay on Some Upgrades to Gov't Insurance Site

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Potential delay on some upgrades to gov't health insurance website Reported by ABCNews.com 10 hours ago.

Potential delay on some upgrades to gov't insurance site

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With sign-up season starting in less than two weeks, the Obama administration indicated on Monday that some long-awaited upgrades to the government's health insurance website could take more time before they're... Reported by WTHR 9 hours ago.

Health law fine on the uninsured will more than double

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The math is harsh: The federal penalty for having no health insurance is set to jump to $695, and the Obama administration is being urged to highlight that cold fact in its new pitch for health law sign-ups. Reported by Newsday 6 hours ago.

Four Seasons Financial Education Launches New Program on Health Savings Account Education

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Financial wellness program vendor launches "The Ins and Outs of HSAs" to support benefits brokers and employees alike.

St. Louis, MO (PRWEB) October 20, 2015

Four Seasons Financial Education (FSFE), a national provider of workplace financial wellness programs, today announced the creation of a new program meant to support both benefits brokers and employees using high-deductible health insurance plans. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, nearly a quarter of U.S. workers with employer health benefits are now enrolled in high-deductible plans. FSFE expects this trend to continue over the next decade.

"The shift to high deductible health plans is happening and won't slow down any time soon," predicts Travis Freeman, the president of FSFE. "Employees at our client companies are often confused about how to use their HSA and benefits brokers are under pressure to provide more HSA education," says Freeman. "Now we have a solution that helps everyone."

The new education program is part of the full lineup of topics within FSFE's financial wellness programs. The HSA program in particular focuses on how HSAs can be used as a company perk, including potential tax benefits and retirement strategies. This new program is meant to be used during conversions to high-deductible health plans, but can be used at anytime after an employees is enrolled. Benefits brokers or employers interested in such a program can contact FSFE via their website, http://www.FSFE.com, for further details.

About Four Seasons Financial Education
Four Seasons Financial Education provides workplace financial wellness and education services to companies throughout the US to help them improve their bottom line. Since 1986, we have helped corporate America increase workplace productivity by focusing on the most important asset of the company - the employees. Consulting services provided through RFG Advisory Group, a Registered Investment Adviser. Reported by PRWeb 2 hours ago.

Benefits U Launches Private Individual Health Insurance Marketplace for Colleges and Universities

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Benefits U Launches Private Individual Health Insurance Marketplace for Colleges and Universities FAIRFIELD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Benefits U Launches Private Individual Health Insurance Marketplace for Colleges and Universities. Reported by Business Wire 22 hours ago.

The 10 Best States To Enjoy An Early Retirement

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Early retirement may seem like an impossible dream for many -- but it doesn't have to be. Early retirees can begin collecting Social Security benefits as early as at age 62, but doing this can reduce your benefits throughout retirement. 

But younger retirees can save on retirement costs by choosing a state with favorable tax laws, low housing costs and an affordable cost of living. SmartAsset, a personal finance advice website, today released its list of the best states for early retirement. The list looked at six factors using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Kaiser Family Foundation and the Council for Community and Economic Research. These factors included taxes (income, sales and property), median annual housing costs, the cost of living (non-housing) and the cost of health insurance coverage. 

Check out the top 10 states below and head over to SmartAsset to learn more about the rankings and methodology. *Also on HuffPost:*

-- 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 19 hours ago.

CBSN business headlines for Oct. 20, 2015

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UPS increases rates by nearly 5 percent, penalties for not having health insurance to rise and Apple pulls apps from its app store Reported by CBS News 19 hours ago.

'Game-Changer' Study Says There's A Better Way To Treat Schizophrenia

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A groundbreaking new study adds to a growing body of evidence that people with schizophrenia can do much better if they get the right treatment at the right time.

Psychiatrists are sure to pay attention to the results. Policymakers eager to do something about mental health may want to do the same.

The study, which the American Journal of Psychiatry published on Tuesday morning, is the latest attempt to test “early intervention” -- a treatment strategy that researchers around the world have been developing for approximately the last 25 years. (Early intervention was the subject of a lengthy Huffington Post Highline article that appeared last week.)

Historically, psychiatrists have treated schizophrenia, which affects about 1 percent of Americans, largely by administering high doses of antipsychotic medications. Some patients recover fully but the majority do not. Instead, those people end up living with severe disability, dropping out of school and living without regular jobs.

Medications can blunt some of the most visible symptoms, but the drugs have severe side effects, causing many people to stop taking them altogether. In some cases, people with schizophrenia end up on the streets or in jail.

Economists have estimated that schizophrenia costs the U.S. more than $60 billion a year, once you account for treatment, lost productivity and other expenses.

In the early intervention model, teams of mental health professionals administer medication in relatively small doses, while focusing more on therapy and support designed to help people stay in school or on the job. Timing is also important. A key focus of early intervention, as the name suggests, is to reach patients shortly after they first experience serious psychotic symptoms, like hearing voices or having delusions about conspiracies. That doesn’t typically happen today. It can take a year or more between the onset of psychosis and treatment.

In countries like Australia and the United Kingdom, early intervention is becoming the standard of care -- thanks in part to decisions by government officials to pay for services through their national health insurance systems. In the U.S, with its patchwork insurance system and history of underfunding mental health care, early intervention is generally available only through small pilot programs that operate out of academic research centers and reach a fraction of the potential population. (The exception is Oregon, where a sprawling program has existed for over a decade.)

The paper published Tuesday comes from experiments, organized and financed by the National Institutes of Mental Health, designed in part to test whether early intervention can work in this country on a much wider scale -- and outside of these elite, specialized centers. The results are encouraging. According to the study, which focuses on more than 400 patients in clinics from 21 states, those people who got the early intervention -- or “coordinated specialty care,” as it’s sometimes called -- fared better on a variety of indicators designed to test psychiatric health. 

In the study, the median length of time between onset of psychosis and treatment was 74 weeks. Those who got treatment before that point were substantially better off than those who got treatment afterward.

“The United States is really a decade behind the rest of the world in doing what we already know works,” said Vinod Srihari, an associate professor of psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, told The Washington Post. With the new findings, “it’s possible now to say that in many community settings ... it is possible to deliver this kind of coordinated care and the outcomes are good.”

Kenneth Duckworth, medical director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, told The New York Times that the findings were a “game-changer for the field.”

The lead author on the study is John Kane, a psychiatrist based at Zucker Hillside Hospital in New York whose research helped lay the intellectual foundation for early intervention. One of the co-authors is Robert Heinssen, director of the Division of Services and Intervention Research at NIMH -- a key architect of the studies that produced Tuesday's paper.

Tuesday’s publication comes just a few months after the release of another pivotal study, by Yale’s Srihari, on early intervention. That study, based on an experimental program in Connecticut, found that early intervention reduces costly hospitalizations and, as a result, can actually save money.

Early intervention is not a cure for schizophrenia and, as even its promoters warn, there’s not much evidence on the long-term effects. (A key factor for long-term improvement may be the quality of care that people get after leaving the programs, which usually last just two or three years.) But those researchers also say that the short-term results alone represent substantial improvement over the status quo -- enough to warrant making early intervention more widely available, as it is in other countries.

And that might get the attention of policymakers who, in the wake of recent mass shootings, have said they want to invest more heavily in mental health services. In 2014, Congress set aside $25 million for states that wish to start their own early intervention programs -- in an effort to provide some of the funding that insurance does not offer on its own. A new allotment, doubling or tripling that amount, would make early intervention accessible to many more people, with minimal impact on the federal budget.

-- 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 18 hours ago.

Berkeley Cops Show Up In Force To Protest Proposed Hike In Retirees' Health Insurance Course

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Berkeley Cops Show Up In Force To Protest Proposed Hike In Retirees' Health Insurance Course Patch Berkeley, NJ -- Township Council members agree in the end to find other ways to save. Reported by Patch 18 hours ago.

AIT Offers New Technology as Solution to National Crime Wave: Healthcare Fraud

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AIT urges the use of the latest investigative technology to detect and apprehend perpetrators, lower overall medical care costs, and provide greater patient safety.

Dulles, VA (PRWEB) October 20, 2015

According to the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association, fraudsters, scammers and organized criminal gangs are bilking the U.S. health care system of as much as $100 billion per year. Health care identity theft has come to dominate all other crimes in the sector; it commonly occurs when someone with legitimate access, such as a hospital administrator or a doctor’s assistant, sells patient information to organized criminal groups. Increasingly, these groups are hacking into digital medical records in order to steal money from the $450 billion, 44-million-beneficiary Medicare system.1

While insurance companies and the federal government are the ultimate targets of these schemes, per Susan Deehan (Chairwoman and CEO of Actionable Intelligence Technologies, the nation’s leading supplier of solutions for financial investigations), criminals’ actions victimize everybody involved in the health care system—especially the patient. Victims of medical identity theft may receive the wrong medical treatment, find that their health insurance benefits have been exhausted or their policy cancelled, or learn that they could become uninsurable for both health and life insurance coverage. The effects of this type of crime can plague a victim’s medical and financial status for years. Patients with serious medical conditions who do not have the help of family members competent enough to fight the endless red tape in order to prevail may never recover their medical treatment plans and benefits.

And identity theft, Deehan points out, is by no means the only type of medical care fraud going on in the U.S. today. A significant amount of health care fraud is committed not by organized crime groups but by health care providers, themselves. While the overwhelming majority of doctors, hospitals and other care providers are honest and dedicated, the sheer size of the U.S. medical care system provides enticement for those who are not. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) notes that national health expenditures in the U.S. reached $2.6 trillion in 2010—17.9% of GDP—and are expected to grow 6.2% per year from 2015-2021. According to ACFE, the most common health care provider fraud schemes include:

●    Billing for services not rendered.
o    Billing for Durable Medical Equipment not delivered.
o    Up-coding for multiple morbidities.
●    Billing for a non-covered service as a covered service.
●    Misrepresenting dates of service.
●    Misrepresenting locations of service.
●    Misrepresenting provider of service.
●    Waiving of deductibles and/or co-payments.
●    Incorrect reporting of diagnoses or procedures.
●    Over-utilization of services.
●    Corruption (kickbacks and bribery).
●    False or unnecessary issuance of prescription drugs.2

The bad news, per Deehan, is that fraudulent activities that are detected are just scratching the surface. Some experts estimate that the unknown percentage of health care fraud which is never detected may actually exceed what is known. Medical payment systems use various “big data” modalities to detect improper payments and fraud. Unfortunately, these techniques have the unintended consequence of training fraudsters how to properly submit cases so that they’ll be paid. Ultimately, any time a human in the loop is willing to lie and certify that a patient was seen, a treatment was provided or a device was given to a patient, that fraudulent transaction will be undetectable by any high-tech computer system. In this way, our medical systems are being exploited for massive amounts of fraudulent transactions, undermining the system and dramatically raising costs for all stakeholders. Due to the sheer volume and complexity of these cases, agencies are reluctant to invest the necessary resources to investigate such activities on a scale necessary to measure the actual fraud. Other industries, such as credit cards, set an acceptable level of fraud loss at 1/10 of one percent, or one basis point, and they spend the money necessary to detect, investigate, measure and prevent fraud. The health care industry has not been willing to invest in the resources necessary to drive such fraud down to a less devastating level, in large part because it’s primarily taxpayer money that’s being lost.

To help strengthen the ability of law enforcement agencies to combat white-collar crime—including health care fraud—AIT has developed a tool called “Comprehensive Financial Investigative Solution” (CFIS), which allows an investigator to process and analyze financial records exponentially faster and more accurately than would be possible using manual methods. CFIS represents the most cost-effective way to detect, measure and investigate “unknown” health care fraud and facilitate recovery of stolen money.

Investigators using CFIS technology, per Deehan, can perform data entry and analysis in hours and days that would otherwise take months and years using conventional methods.

“The key to success in health care fraud cases, as in all financial investigations, is the ability to leverage advanced technology that allows an investigative group to conduct a comprehensive analysis of all the data in a case in a timely manner. This gives the agency the ability to successfully win cases that would otherwise either be greatly curtailed, discontinued or defeated at trial.”

About Actionable Intelligence Technologies:

Headquartered in Dulles, VA, award-winning Actionable Intelligence Technologies is the nation’s leading supplier of solutions for financial investigations. AIT’s customers include the New York Attorney General’s Office, United States Attorney’s Office, the United States Secret Service, the United States Postal Inspection Service, the Department of Securities, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, and other important state agencies, as well as the Miami-Dade Police Department, the United States Department of Agriculture, numerous commercial and international forensic accounting firms, and many others. Founded in 1998, AIT is dedicated to helping financial investigators make our country a safer place to live. AIT’s mission is to fight financial crime by delivering the technology and expert knowledge necessary to detect, investigate and permanently dismantle the criminal organization. References are available on request. For more information, visit http://aitcfis.com.

1.    Kavilanz, Parija, “Health care: A ‘goldmine’ for fraudsters,” CNN Money, January 13, 2010. money.cnn.com/2010/01/13/news/economy/health_care_fraud/#.

2.    Piper, Charles, “10 popular health care provider fraud schemes,” Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, January/February 2013. acfe.com/article.aspx?id=4294976280. Reported by PRWeb 18 hours ago.

Amino Launches A Consumer Healthcare Search Platform, Backed By $19.4M From Accel, CRV, Others

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 Stealthy San Francisco-based digital healthcare startup Amino has been quietly amassing a database of U.S. consumer healthcare data since late 2013 to underpin the product it’s launching today: a search platform powered by heathcare transaction data from 188 million Americans — garnered from U.S. health insurance data — to make it easier for consumers to locate a doctor or… Read More Reported by TechCrunch 17 hours ago.

Cutting Corners on Construction? Think Again

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2015 has been deadly in the construction sector with 11 construction site fatalities in New York City's past fiscal year, according to data compiled by the City of New York. This does not include the three devastating fatalities in the last two months that all occurred on construction worksites not up to code or lacking safety equipment, according to numerous complaints filed to the City.

That deadly sum exceeds New York City construction fatalities in all recent years and is up 83 percent over FY2014 and 120 percent since FY2013 (the city's fiscal calendar runs July 1 - June 30), representing the highest total since the current construction expansion began in 2008. While construction is a huge economic engine for New York City, it accounts for less than 4 percent of all New York State employment, yet an astounding 20 percent of all of the state's on-the-job deaths.

What's more, the Mayor's Management Report has identified that with hundreds of serious construction related accidents, injuries increased 34 percent in FY 2015, up 51 percent from both FY2013 and FY2012. So what is the cause of this and how can it be rectified?

Two trends are leading the increase. One is the obvious surge of new construction New York City has encountered, as the Department of Buildings issued 52,618 residential building permits in FY2015, up 156 percent from FY2014 and up a staggering 749 percent from FY2010.

The second is that data from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) shows that nonunion worksites also accounted for 75 percent of construction fatalities in 2014 and 72 percent between 2012-2013.

On August 5, two construction companies, their foreman and senior superintendent were indicted on criminal charges for a worker's death at yet another nonunion worksite, for ignoring repeated safety warnings from City inspectors.

That was the very same day the New York City Construction Fraud Task Force was announced by the Manhattan District Attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr. together with leaders of the city's Department of Investigation and Business Integrity Commission, the Port Authority and MTA's Offices of the Inspector General, to investigate, combat and shine a brighter spotlight on lax construction site safety and worker abuses by general contractors and developers.

These criminal indictments, along with the serious concerns by each of these prosecutorial watchdogs signal further crackdowns may be coming to shed light on contracting firms willing to cut corners and take risks with worker and public safety.

This also serves as a wake-up call that regulators, the courts and government officials are now identifying that serious construction accidents and work site negligence very often cost taxpayers dearly in the pocketbook.

When serious construction accidents occur, it's the taxpayers who have to pay for first responders, law enforcement and investigators sent to the scene. There is also recognition that uninsured workers' hospital and disability costs often have to be borne by New York taxpayers. With the volume of serious work site accidents and fatalities growing so significantly, it's an unmistakable drain on municipal budgets.

The U.S. Labor Department estimates that employers cover only 21 percent of lost wages and medical bills for occupational injuries and illnesses, while employees, their families and their private health insurance pay most of the bill out of pocket (63 percent), and subsidized government programs cover 16 percent according to the recent report, "Adding Inequality to Injury: The Costs of Failing to Protect Workers on the Job."

Height-related falls account for nearly half of the construction deaths in New York. However, when companies skimp on safety and training of their workforce, accidents 20 or 40 stories above street level also imperils pedestrians. From 2009 to 2014, nine innocent lives were lost as result of tools and construction materials falling from work sites, according to the NY City Buildings Department.

The economic impact of the civil litigation and stop work orders that follow have cost developers and general contractors tens-of-millions-of-dollars, and significantly delayed the completion of projects while causing severe harm to their reputation.

As far too many developers and general contractors continue circumventing safety regulations that endanger New York City construction workers and the public at-large, the now considerable power of the Construction Fraud Task Force is looking to remove the economic incentive for those currently cheating the system.

While no business should be begrudged for wanting to make a profit, gambling with the health, safety and future income of workers is simply unacceptable. At the end of the day, every worker should have the capability to put in a hard day's work, and then return safely to their family.

-- 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 16 hours ago.

A.M. Best Places Ratings of Universal American Corp. and Its Subsidiaries Under Review

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A.M. Best Places Ratings of Universal American Corp. and Its Subsidiaries Under Review OLDWICK, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A.M. Best has placed the issuer credit rating (ICR) of “bb” of Universal American Corp. (Universal American) (headquartered in White Plains, NY) [NYSE: UAM] under review with negative implications. A.M. Best has also placed the financial strength rating (FSR) of B++ (Good) and the ICR of “bbb” of American Progressive Life & Health Insurance Company of New York (American Progressive) (headquartered in Lake Mary, FL) and the FSR of B+ (Good) and the ICR of “bbb Reported by Business Wire 17 hours ago.

Collective Health Wants You To Love Your Health Insurance

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Few people trust their health insurance company. Customer service is poor, the language on benefits is obscure, and patients who fork out thousands of dollars in deductibles can discover at an inopportune time that their plan doesn’t cover a procedure. Ali Diab found himself in such a situation when he needed [...] Reported by Forbes.com 16 hours ago.

Collective Health Closes On $81 Million, Adds Google Ventures To List Of High-Profile Investors

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 Enterprise health insurance services platform Collective Health has raised a healthy $81 million in Series C funding to help the startup continue to grow its team, as well as cover the U.S. market. Ali Diab co-founded Collective Health with his friend Rajaie Batniji, a physician and political economist at Stanford University, after Diab had a terrible experience going the rounds with his… Read More Reported by TechCrunch 16 hours ago.

Collective Health Closes $81 Million Series C From Google Ventures, Founders Fund and NEA

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Collective Health Closes $81 Million Series C From Google Ventures, Founders Fund and NEA SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Collective Health is redesigning employer health insurance nationwide with $81M in Series C funding from Founders Fund, Google Ventures, Maverick, NEA, Redpoint and RRE Ventures. Reported by Business Wire 17 hours ago.

Collective Health takes $81M from Google Ventures, others, to go nationwide

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Collective Health takes $81M from Google Ventures, others, to go nationwide Collective Health says today it’s taking a large new funding round from Google Ventures and others to offer its health insurance management platform to employers nationwide in 2016. The $81 million funding round comes from first-time investor Google Ventures and existing investors NEA and Founders Fund, along with Maverick Capital, Redpoint Ventures and RRE Ventures. San Mateo, Calif.-based Collective Health […] Reported by VentureBeat 15 hours ago.

Health Insurers Aetna, Anthem Defend Merger Deals

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The chief executives of Aetna and Anthem defended their planned deals before a Senate subcommittee, facing sharply critical testimony that raised questions about the impact of health-insurance consolidation. Reported by Wall Street Journal 2 hours ago.

State Farm Insurance Agent Lad Drago Helping South Carolina Flood Victims One Pair of Shoes at a Time

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Lad Drago, of State Farm, is proud to announce his office, located at 7623 Spanish Fort Blvd., Spanish Fort, AL, is now an official Soles4Souls drop-off location and he will be collecting shoes for people affected by recent South Carolina flooding.

Spanish Fort, AL (PRWEB) October 21, 2015

Lad Drago, of State Farm, is proud to announce his office, located at 7623 Spanish Fort Blvd., Spanish Fort, AL, is now an official Soles4Souls drop-off location and he will be collecting shoes for people affected by recent South Carolina flooding.

“I am honored to do my part in collecting donated shoes for this altruistic organization whose mission is to wear out poverty,” said Lad. “I am encouraging the community to come by my office to donate a new pair of shoes to help the people affected by the catastrophic flooding in South Carolina.”

Flooding has claimed the lives of at least 17 people and left tens of thousands without power or water in South Carolina. In addition to the eleven dams that have failed or been breached, more dams are expected to give way creating even more devastation. Soles4Souls is working with emergency responders to provide safe, sturdy footwear, clothing and other necessities to victims who face rebuilding their lives in South Carolina.

Lad and Soles4Souls believe everyone around the globe deserves a good pair of shoes. To fulfill its mission of wearing out poverty, to date, Soles4Souls has collected and distributed more than 26 million pairs of shoes to those in need in 127 countries around the world and all 50 states in the U.S.

“The people of South Carolina need our help,” said Lad. “By donating shoes, we can help give them a basic necessity that most of us take for granted and assist people in need in our own backyard.”

For more information about becoming an official drop-off location or getting involved with Soles4Souls, visit https://soles4souls.org/get-involved/.

About Soles4Souls
Soles4Souls, a not-for-profit global social enterprise dedicated to fighting the devastating impact and perpetuation of poverty, was founded as a disaster relief organization after philanthropists and shoe executives provided footwear to those most impacted by the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The organization advances its anti-poverty mission by collecting new and used shoes and clothes from individuals, schools, faith-based institutions, civic organizations and corporate partners, then distributes those shoes and clothes via direct donations to people in need.

About Lad Drago, State Farm
Lad Drago has been serving the Spanish Fort and Daphne, AL, areas as a State Farm agent for the past ten years, and is a member of the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance. He offers auto, home and property, life and health Insurance, as well as banking products, annuities and mutual funds. For more information, please call 251-626-1237.

About the NALA™
The NALA offers local business owners new online advertising & small business marketing tools, great business benefits, education and money-saving programs, as well as a charity program. For media inquiries, please call 805.650.6121, ext. 361. Reported by PRWeb 2 hours ago.

Health Plan CEOs, Financial Experts Talk About Challenges Facing Health Care Startups in AIS Newsletter

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For its Oct. 19, 2015, issue, Atlantic Information Services’ Health Plan Week interviewed leaders at health care startups and financial experts about why it is hard to launch new fully insured medical plans.

Washington, DC (PRWEB) October 21, 2015

The health care industry overall is a hotbed of new start-up ventures, but health insurance remains practically untouched, according to Atlantic Information Services, Inc.’s (AIS) Health Plan Week (HPW). For its Oct. 19, 2015, issue, HPW interviewed leaders at two health care startups and financial experts to identify the challenges health care startups face.

One such challenge is changes imposed upon the industry by implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). “There’s just a lot of risk on the ACA business that I think they weren’t ready to absorb and that’s why you’re starting to see some of these CO-OPs [Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans created by the ACA] go out of business and some of these start-ups struggle,” Steve Zaharuk, senior vice president at Moody’s Investors Service, tells HPW.

Portland, Ore.-based Zoom+ Health Plan, for example, one of the startups featured in the newsletter, reported premium revenues of $67,228 and hospital and medical claims of $58,209. But with $1.5 million in administrative expenses, the company reported total losses of approximately $1.6 million. The company aims to turn a profit within five years.

Another challenge facing startup health plans is “build[ing] that franchise, that brand awareness, that recognition,” Mark Rouck, senior director at Fitch Ratings, tells HPW. To that end, some of these newer companies cater to niche audiences. In addition to offering insurance, Zoom+ co-founder and CEO Dave Sanders tells HPW, “We think of ourselves as being a lifestyle or even ultimately a performance lifestyle brand...primarily organized around millennial individuals, catering to their needs.”

Ohio-based Beam, has found its niche in dental care. “In the dental industry,” says Beam co-founder and CEO Alex Frommeyer, “the number of people who don’t have insurance or dental benefits of any kind so that they can more cost-effectively access provider services is staggering.” Beam began offering dental insurance in July, and Frommeyer says membership, which is now in the thousands, is growing at “tens of percent” each week.

Sanders sees parallels between what’s happening in the insurance industry and what happened in the American entertainment industry. “It wasn’t that long ago [that] we had CBS, ABC and NBC, and you couldn’t imagine a world where those three companies weren’t essentially the primary suppliers of entertainment content, which was then beamed to U.S. TVs,” he says. “The analysts in that space and the investors in that space were very skeptical of any other approaches. And then suddenly, overnight, ABC, NBC and CBS are sort of bit players in the world of highly individualized, highly tailored channels and content. What we’re talking about is the same sort of movement in health care. But it’s hard to see that before it actually happens.”

Visit https://aishealth.com/archive/nhpw101915-02 to read the article in its entirety.

About Health Plan Week
Published since 1991, the weekly newsletter Health Plan Week provides timely, objective business, financial and regulatory news of the health insurance industry. Coverage includes new benefit designs and underwriting practices, new products and marketing strategies, mergers and alliances, financial performance and results, Medicare and Medicaid opportunities, disease management, and the flood of reform-driven regulatory initiatives including medical loss ratios, exchanges, ACOs and myriad benefit design changes that are mandated. Visit http://aishealth.com/marketplace/health-plan-week for more information.

About Atlantic Information Services
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 1 day ago.
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