Core and Group Health

The average annual cost per employee provide important benchmarks for employers looking to expand into various states and the potential impact on overall human resource costs, says Bill Stafford, UBA Vice President, Member Services.

Analysts at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, Menlo Park, Calif., have described the stage of exchange development in each state in a new collection of state exchange program profiles.

Medicare's popular prescription program has an unsavory underside. It's an easy target for drug abusers seeking to feed their own addictions or sell painkillers for profit, congressional investigators said in a report released Tuesday.

These hospitals, mostly in the South, may be at higher risk of financial failure, too. That's because the nation's new health care law punishes bad care by withholding some money, says the lead author of the study published Wednesday in the journal Health Affairs.

In-home health providers who care for Louisiana Medicaid patients say they have been unfairly targeted by health department audits that claimed they owed $4.2 million in overpayments and fines, and nearly every provider sanctioned is appealing the decision.

Business services company Towers Watson & Co. said Tuesday it acquired WellsCanning, an investment advisory firm specializing in the insurance industry.