Private Insurance

In this column for the JAMA Health Forum, Larry Levitt examines how the No Surprises Act that prohibits unexpected out-of-network charges for patients could lead to lower payment rates and revenues for some doctors and other care providers.

In this commentary for Barron’s, Cynthia Cox and Lindsey Dawson examine the cost and availability of at-home COVID-19 tests and how the new Biden administration policy requiring private insurances to cover their costs may work. 

This policy watch provides an early look at how top private insurers are implementing a new requirement to cover the cost of at-home COVID-19 tests. Initially about half offer a direct coverage option and half require an enrollee to pay upfront and then seek reimbursement.

Less than a week after a new federal mandate to cover such products took effect, about half of the nation’s largest private insurers allow enrollees to directly obtain rapid at-home COVID-19 tests from specific sources without having to pay anything upfront, a new KFF analysis finds. The new coverage requirement…

Forty-seven states saw Marketplace enrollment increase, ranging from 1% in Rhode Island to 42% in Texas. In 20 states, enrollment increased by more than 20%.

Health plan networks affect patient access to care. This brief reviews options for setting and enforcing network adequacy standards and tools for making differences in plan networks more transparent.

Telehealth use skyrocketed during the early months of the pandemic. While it has since decreased somewhat from that high, it still represents a much more substantial share of health care than before COVID, this KFF-Epic Research analysis finds.

Continuous enrollment in Medicaid and enhanced premium assistance have helped millions afford and maintain coverage, but those gains could be reversed as the public emergency ends and if the provisions like those in the Build Back Better Act fail to pass.

A new federal law provides new consumer protections against “surprise” medical bills beginning this year. Test your knowledge about its provisions with this 12-question quiz.

The COVID-19 pandemic has coincided with worsening mental health across the country, and California is no exception. This data note find that in California in 2020, many nonelderly adults experienced poor mental health and did not receive needed care.