Medicare health insurance is a program that is federally administered and is made available to people with certain specific forms of disability, permanent kidney failure, or people who are 65 years of age or older. There are several different types of Medicare plans, the basics of which are as follows: • Medicare Part A – provides coverage for hospital care (among institutions that accept Medicare) and has no monthly premium for its beneficiaries, as long as they have been employed and have paid FICA taxes for a minimum of a…
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UnitedHealth launched new initiative to make hearing aids available to more Americans
The UnitedHealth Group, one of the largest health insurance companies in the U.S., has announced that it will begin offering hearing aids as part of its myriad of health care products. The company has introduced four different kinds of hearing aids each made by IntriCon Corp., a manufacturer of small medical devices. UnitedHealth has begun offering hearing aids as part of a way to promote Medicare enrollment. The company will be offering hearing aids for eligible Medicare plan members at retail prices, which will be lower than prices found outside…
Read MoreStandard & Poor’s reports cost of Medicare increasing at its slowest rate in over half a decade
According to data recently released by Standard & Poor’s, over the last year, the revenue increase for hospitals resulting from Medicare patients was about one third over what had been seen from patients who are covered by some form of private health insurance. The S&P Healthcare Economic Index showed that the revenue from Medicare increased by 2.5 percent per hospital patient before June 2011, which is the slowest increase since January 2005, when S&P’s first started to monitor this income. That said, the revenue generated from patients who were covered…
Read MoreMedicare regulations may be causing shortage of cancer drugs
A month’s long shortage of cancer drugs may be the result of Medicare regulations. For several years, Medicare has provided coverage for cancer patients, allowing them to obtain treatments that they would otherwise have no access to. While Medicare offers this coverage, however, the number of cancer fighting drugs has been falling steadily. The phenomenon may be the result of a regulation within the Medicare system that dictates that doctors must purchase cancer drugs, not patients. Traditionally, patients have been responsible for purchasing their own medications as prescribed to them…
Read MoreWellPoint shares drop following second quarter Medicare spending analysis
Shares of the health insurance company with the highest enrollment, WellPoint Inc., fell dramatically after the insurer announced that its second quarter medical care costs spiked following an increase in its Medicare patients. For the second time this year, the Indianapolis-based insurer has increased its annual forecast following the increase in sales. The enrollment with WellPoint increased by 2.1 percent, reaching 34.2 million, primarily from a rise in elderly and disabled Medicare members. Approximately 75 percent of the new enrollees with Medicare had come from competitors that had withdrawn from…
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