So you are a health plan selling policies on the reform law insurance exchanges and you do a lousy actuarial and pricing job and you are losing lots of money; so how to fix that. Let's screw the doctors by cutting their reimbursement 4.5%; that is exactly what Highmark, a Pennsylvania Blues plan is doing. Gutless, lame, pathetic; call it whatever you want, the regulators should stop it. It isn't the doctors' fault that Highmark can't price.
McKesson's corporate venture capital unit is investing in PokitDoc, which has a platform for health care transactions. Maybe they will use some of the money to find a normal name.
Indicating its seriousness about health care data and analytics, IBM is spending $2.6 billion to buy Truven Health Analytics, which helps providers, employers, plans, life sciences companies and others.
PE firm Water Street is selling Health Plan Services to Indian oursourcing firm Wipro for $460 million. Health Plan Services provides administrative services for insurers and health plans.
Sometimes if you aren't doing too well on your own, you can combine with someone else who isn't doing too well. I have no idea what is behind this combination but four health care management and transaction service companies are merging, Premier Healthcare Exchange, Stratose, GlobalCare and Pay-Plus Solutions, all supposedly industry leaders, so God knows how dominant that new entity will be.
Concierge health care provider One Medical has added one more medical capability, acquiring Rise, a vendor of nutritional counseling services, supposedly for $20 million.
According to DRX, a unit of Connecture that helps patients pick Medicare plans, prices on a number of drugs have more than doubled since 2014, and some have quadrupled.
The Healthy Skeptic is a website about the health care system, and is written by Kevin Roche, who has many years of experience working in the health industry. Mr. Roche is available to assist health care companies through consulting arrangements through Roche Consulting, LLC and may be reached at khroche@healthy-skeptic.com.
The Healthy Skeptic is a website about the health care system, and is written by Kevin Roche, who has many years of experience working in the health industry. Mr. Roche is available to assist health care companies through consulting arrangements through Roche Consulting, LLC and may be reached at khroche@healthy-skeptic.com.