Compensation Issues

The following payers made headlines this week, beginning with the most recent. 

Minuteman Health, a Boston-based nonprofit health insurer, lacks funds to complete a proposed transition to a for-profit entity and sell insurance on 2018 ACA marketplaces, The Boston Globe reports.

Physicians educated at top medical schools prescribe fewer opioids than those educated at lower-ranked medical schools, according to a working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

As an August deadline looms, 165 physicians have yet to sign employment contracts at Charleston-based Medical University of South Carolina due to confusion over a new relative value unit-based compensation plan.

The average medical resident is earning $57,200 this year, but the majority of residents say this pay is not commensurate with the amount of time worked, according to a Medscape survey of more than 1,500 residents across 25 specialties.  

The following payers made headlines this week, beginning with the most recent.

Indianapolis-based Anthem threatened to exit more ACA exchanges next year if uncertainty regarding the government's funding of cost-sharing reductions, which help offset the cost of providing discounted deductibles to eligible exchange enrollees, persists, Bloomberg reports.

Asheville, N.C.-based Mission Health System and Bloomfield, Conn.-based Cigna inked a multiyear contract effective Sept. 1.

Doral, Fla.-based Prestige Health Choice, a Medicaid managed care plan and joint venture between Florida Blue and AmeriHealth Caritas, both with locations in Jacksonville, Fla., paid $1.7 million to Florida physicians through its value-based compensation programs.

Asheville, N.C.-based Mission Health System representatives penned an op-ed stating a "fair contract" with the state's largest insurer — Durham-based Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina — "is not a want, it is an absolute need."