Medical Billing Blog

Federal officials on Wednesday released new data about who enrolled in the federal health marketplace plans for 2014, how much the law’s subsidies helped offset the cost and how many plans people from could choose from, among other details.

Earlier this month, CMS released the final version of the Exchange and Insurance Market Standards for 2015. This final rule outlines how the healthcare market places will function in 2015. The rule finalizes policies regarding consumer notices, quality reporting and enrollee satisfaction surveys, the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP), standards for Navigators and other consumer assisters, and policies regarding the premium stabilization programs, among other standards.

Health care spending rose at the fastest pace since 1980 as the new health insurance law prompted many more Americans to seek medical treatment. “Following several years of decline, 2013 was striking for the increased use by patients of all parts of the U.S. health care system,” Murray Aitken, executive director of the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, said in a statement. Health care expenditures climbed at a 9.9% annual rate last quarter, mostly because of increased spending at hospitals, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said last week. That's the biggest jump since 1980's third quarter, and it followed a 5.6% increase in the fourth quarter of 2013.

The Obama administration on Friday announced updates to model notices informing workers of their eligibility to continue health-care coverage through the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, or Cobra. The updates make it clear to workers that if they are eligible for COBRA continuation coverage when leaving a job, they may choose to instead purchase coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace.

President Obama announced Thursday that eight million people have signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, including what the White House said were a sufficient number of young, healthy adults. The total number of enrollees exceeds by a million the target set by the administration for people to buy insurance through government-run health care exchanges. In particular, the number of young people signing up appears to have surged during the final weeks of enrollment. Speaking at an impromptu news conference, the president described how the law has helped make a difference for ordinary citizens. Along with the eight million enrollments through the exchange, the White House released figures on other aspects of the law. Three million Americans enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, five million people enrolled in health plans that meet ACA standards but were sold outside the exchange and 3 million young adults (under the age of 26) were able to stay on their parents’ plan.  

Health-insurance premiums for plans sold in the Affordable Care Act's exchanges will be lower than previously expected for the next few years, according to a report by the Congressional Budget Office released Monday. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that health insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act will total a little more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years, instead of almost $1.2 trillion initially estimated. CBO said the 8 percent cut results largely from tighter cost controls by insurance companies offering plans on health care exchanges. Generally speaking, the plans offered on the exchanges pay health care providers less and have tighter management of patients’ treatment options, and that means lower premiums and taxpayer subsidies.

March 23^rd marked the four-year anniversary of enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Most of the past four years have been spent developing the infrastructure and refining the policies to implement the law. Implementation began on October 1^st, 2013, when the first open enrollment period went live. Now, as the first open enrollment period comes to an end, it seems like an appropriate opportunity to examine the state of the ACA as “phase one” comes to an end.

President Barack Obama celebrated the end of the Affordable Care Act’s first open enrollment period by announcing that at least 7.1 million Americans have signed up for insurance through exchanges. "No, the Affordable Care Act hasn’t fixed our long broken health care system, but this law has made our broken system a lot better," Obama said before a large and happy crowd Tuesday afternoon in the Rose Garden. The tally is based on the number of people who enrolled for coverage by Monday’s deadline through the new federal insurance marketplace operating in three dozen states. It also includes people who enrolled in 14 state-run marketplaces as of the deadline or, in the case of a few states, by last weekend. The Census Bureau estimates that 47 million Americans went without health insurance last year, more than 15 percent of the population. White House press secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday that the administration expects that the final numbers will also show sharply higher enrollment by young adults, though demographic breakdowns by race or age will not be available for days or weeks, and he was unable to say how many of the enrollees were previously uninsured. The law’s impact on the uninsured, he said, was intended to be measured over three years.

Monday is the last day of March and it's also the last day to sign up for insurance through healthcare.gov! 

As Monday's deadline to sign up for health insurance or face a penalty approaches, there's plenty of attention on the uninsured. But how about the underinsured? A new report finds that 32 million people were underinsured in the U.S. in 2012, meaning their health insurance didn’t do enough to protect them from major medical costs, according to a new report from the Commonwealth Fund. That makes for 80 million Americans who either have no health insurance at all, or who don’t have enough, the report finds. The Affordable Care Act insurance reforms seek to expand coverage and to improve the affordability of care and premiums.