Suzanne York

In a front-page investigative report headlined “Patients Hit with Big Bills While Insurers Reap Fees,” the New York Times shows how health insurers use MultiPlan to reduce payments to medical providers, which increases the fees employers pay the insurers and MultiPlan, but which frequently results in higher medical bills for patients. Here’s how it works:  […]

On March 19, 2024, New York-based Mount Sinai Health System and UnitedHealthcare announced that they had resolved their disputes and reached agreement on a four-year contract for Mount Sinai’s hospitals and physicians to be in-network with the health insurer. In a statement, Mount Sinai CEO Brendan Carr stated: We are pleased to have reached an

Health care providers nationwide have been impacted with substantial disruptions to the health care services they provide following a February 2024 data breach by Change Healthcare (https://www.changehealthcare.com/), a technology-based subsidiary of United HealthCare. Change serves as an intermediary between health insurance companies, providers and patients, and claims on its website to be “a trusted partner

The Federation of American Hospitals (“FAH”) proposal that CMS add a quality measure to its Medicare Advantage star rating system that would require these plans to report their level 1 prior authorization denial rates has been recommended for approval by an expert panel. The “Level 1 Upheld Denial Rate” proposal is intended to add transparency

Beating analysts’ expectations, the Cigna Group reported strong profits of $1 billion and revenues of $51.1 billion for the fourth quarter of 2023. Fourth quarter revenues were up 12% from $45.8 billion in the prior year quarter. Growth was particularly strong at Cigna Healthcare.  Cigna also reported full year 2023 profits of $5.2 billion and

Elevance Health, Inc. (formerly known as Anthem) reported strong fourth quarter 2023 profits of $856 million and strong fourth quarter revenues of $2.6 billion in revenue, beating analysts’ expectations. Its revenues were up nearly 7% from the prior year quarter. As a result of these strong earnings, Elevance raised its quarterly dividend by 10.1% to

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has finalized its Interoperability and Prior Authorization Rule, which applies, inter alia, to Medicare Advantage plans. Beginning in 2026, Medicare Advantage and other plans subject to the Final Rule will be required to respond to prior authorization requests within 72 hours for expedited (urgent) requests and seven calendar

Following strong profits in 2022 and the first three quarters of 2023, UnitedHealth Group (“United”) again reported strong profits for the fourth quarter and full year 2023.  United reported fourth quarter profits of $5.5 billion compared with $4.8 billion from the prior year quarter and revenues of $94.4 billion, up from $82.8 billion from the

Bryan Stevenson, the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, the Legacy Museum, and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice has given an important interview on the state of race in America.  His interview is linked here.

On December 15, 2023, CMS reopened its IDR portal to process all dispute types and granted extensions to certain deadlines.  Specifically, CMS announced: For disputing parties engaged in IDR entity selection for batched disputes when the IDR portal temporarily closed, the deadline for selecting a certified IDR entity is December 29, 2023. Disputing parties with