The Department of Justice granted preliminary approval for CVS and Aetna to move forward with their $69 billion merger, signaling a potential change in how many American consumers access health care. On September 27, Aetna announced their agreement to sell their Medicare Part D drug plan business to WellCare Health Plans to ease…
Posts By: Lauren Hayden
Aetna to Sell Medicare Part D Business to WellCare Health Plans
Plans for the Future Aetna has agreed to sell the assets from their Medicare Part D business to WellCare Health Plans in hopes of greasing the rails for approval of its merger with CVS. The financial terms of the transaction have not yet been disclosed. However, the deal is contingent upon approval from…
Cigna-Express Scripts Merger Gets Antitrust Approval
Updates on Upcoming Mergers Cigna has received antitrust approval for their acquisition of Express Scripts. The deal is predicted to fully close by the end of 2018. This is also good news for the CVS-Aetna merger, as that antitrust approval is still in the works. Cigna’s acquisition of Express Scripts was first announced about…
CVS-Aetna & Cigna-Express Scripts Deals Likely to Get Approval
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is reportedly very close to approving the mergers between CVS and Aetna and Cigna and Express Scripts. Those familiar with the deals predict the DOJ’s formal antitrust approvals will come within the next several weeks. Update on the CVS-Aetna Merger Regulators reportedly have some concerns that the almost $70 billion deal between…
Recap of Affordable Care Act Enrollment for the 2018 Plan Year
From 2017 to 2018, enrollment in Affordable Care Act (ACA) plans dropped by 3.7 percent. For the 2018 plan year, a total of 11.8 million people signed up for ACA plans, compared to last year’s 12.2 million enrollees. Prior to open enrollment, the advertising budget for the Affordable Care Act was decreased by 90…
Errors Found in More than Half of MA Provider Directories
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have found issues, yet again, with Medicare Advantage organization’s provider directories. Upon a thorough investigation conducted from September 2016 to August 2017, CMS found that 52 percent of the provider directory locations listed contained at least one error. When CMS completed its first review from February…
Medicare Announces 2018 Parts A & B Premiums and Deductibles
On Friday, CMS released the costs for Original Medicare coverage for 2018. Medicare Part B premiums will rise for many, but not for all. Part B About 70 percent of Medicare Part B enrollees will see an increase from the average $109 premium they paid in 2017. In the coming year, Social Security benefits…
Evolent to Acquire Premier’s Ohio MA Business
Earlier this week, Evolent Health announced that they will be taking over the insurance business portion of long-time customer, Premier Health, in early 2018. Evolent has been helping Premier offer value-based care since early 2013. They assisted Premier with the launch of their Medicare Advantage and commercial health plans in 2015, which did quite well…