Chiropractic Breakthrough

A final vote by the Senate is expected this week on a House bill which stops a scheduled 21% Medicare fee decrease. In anticipation of this vote, the CMS has reported that they will continue to hold claims through June 17th. If Congress has not taken final action by June 18th, claims will be paid with the 21% fee decrease applied.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners reported today that health insurance companies will cancel policies and leave the individual insurance market in some states because of a provision of the new health care law that requires insurers to spend more of each premium dollar for the benefit of consumers and that the federal government should take steps to prevent disruption of the market.

Today, the White House will issue new rules that strongly discourage employers from cutting health insurance benefits or increasing the costs of coverage to employees. The rules limit the changes that employers can make if they want to be exempt from certain provisions of the health care law passed by Congress in March.

With the passage of the new health care law, whenever people renew their policies or sign up for new ones after Sept. 23, after which time insurers can only rescind coverage if someone commits fraud — by lying on an application, for example. The new law also requires health plans to provide certain preventive services free of charge for plan members, another provision that goes into effect after Sept. 23. But this provision only applies to new health plans. If you currently have coverage, your plan will be grandfathered and will not be subject to that provision.

Tracy Watts, a partner at Mercer Health and Benefits estimates that changes made in response to the health law will add an extra 2-3% in cost increases this year, pressuring employers to engage in even more cost-sharing with employees — whether through higher premiums, higher deductibles, co-payments or other out-of-pocket costs.

A start-up financed by prominent venture capitalists and the Cleveland Clinic, Castlight Health, aims to change that by building a search engine for health care prices. Patients using Castlight could search for doctors that offer a service nearby and find out how much they will charge, depending on their insurance coverage. Price transparency could significantly change the way health care is bought in the United States.

President Obama dipped back into the volatile politics of health care on Tuesday, using a televised question-and-answer session to attack his Republican critics and remind retirees that the check — a new $250 rebate to help them pay for prescription drugs — is about to go in the mail.

Federal incentive payments to help doctors buy equipment to computerize medical records become available to doctors in January. To qualify for up to $18K next year and $44K over 5 years, doctors have to meet 25 criteria. In meetings at the White House this week, doctors and hospital executives voiced concern that the proposed standards are impossibly high and the risk of failure is great.

President Obama and his allies, concerned about deep skepticism over his landmark health care overhaul, are orchestrating an elaborate campaign to sell the public on the law, including a new tax-exempt group that will spend millions of dollars on advertising to beat back attacks on the measure and Democrats who voted for it.

This week the American Chiropractic Association announced that it has obtained absolute proof a campaign is being launched by major elements of organized medicine to repeal the pro-chiropractic “provider non-discrimination” provision (Section 2706) that the ACA successfully included in the recently enacted national health reform bill.