Let’s Get Real on Reducing Costs
It’s October. That means Halloween and something even scarier — insurance premium increases. This year, people in the individual market will face hikes even higher than usual thanks to the federal government’s concerted effort to undermine the marketplace. Small businesses in New Jersey also feel the fright. Plans now offered in the Small Employer market have…Read More…
Take Five with Glenn A. MacFarlane
Glenn A. MacFarlane is Chief Executive Officer of Aetna Better Health of New Jersey. You became CEO of Aetna Better Health of New Jersey just last year. The plan started in 2015 and now has 40,000 members. What makes the plan different from others? Aetna started on January 1, 2015. We initially went live in…Read More…
NJ Loses Federal Funding to Expand ACA Enrollment
NJ Loses Federal Funding to Expand ACA Enrollment Lilo H. Stainton | October 12, 2017 Some $26 million in cuts will put a serious dent in ACA navigator programs in virtually all states New Jersey will lose more than 60 percent of the federal funding it expected to receive this year to help enroll vulnerable…Read More…
New Jersey to Put Payment Reform Scorecard to the Test
New Jersey to Put Payment Reform Scorecard to the Test Mary Caffrey Despite the unrest in Washington, DC, payment reform is very much alive in markets across the country, as employers and large purchasers of healthcare look for new ways to deliver care. In fact, Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR), a group of progressive purchasers…Read More…
Take Five with Saira A. Jan
Saira A. Jan, M.S., Pharm.D, is a clinical professor at Rutgers University Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy. Dr. Jan recently presented the Pharmacy School’s ‘Opioid Abuse Toolkit: Resources for New Jersey Communities’ to community and provider representatives from Jersey City, Trenton, and Cumberland County, three regions involved in the Quality Institute’s Healthy Communities create Healthy…Read More…
ACA Enrollment Needs You
Open enrollment for the ACA Marketplace begins November 1 and runs through December 15. New Jersey residents will have three carriers to choose from: Horizon BCBSNJ, AmeriHealth, and Oscar. The 2018 rates should come out any day now and will be higher than they otherwise would have been if Congress or the Administration had authorized…Read More…
The Relentless School Nurse: Blog on Aunt Bertha
One of the 5 principles of NASN’s Framework for 21st Century School Nursing Practice is Community/Public Health. Relentless School Nursing calls for knowing our community resources and providing helpful, accurate and effective referrals. How embarrassing is it to refer a family to a resource only to find out that it has shut down, changed their phone…Read More…
Best Care is Best Kept Secret
I recently visited my new physician, Dr. Randi Protter, at R-Health, which provides a new model of care — called Direct Primary Care — that could improve patient outcomes while also reducing costs. The state, seeking ways to reduce costs, began this model for people covered by the State Health Benefits Program (state and local government employees,…Read More…
Take Five with Paul G. Vidal
Paul G. Vidal, PT, DPT, is president of the American Physical Therapy Association of New Jersey, APTANJ. You have said we are experiencing an epidemic of chronic pain. How do you see the connection to the current opioid crisis? Almost nine in 10 Americans suffer from pain at some point in their lives. About 50 million…Read More…
Health care institute hopes program will show if payment reform works
Published on Return on Information New Jersey by Anjalee Khemlani.. Is the much-touted value-based reimbursement model, in which providers get paid for care of a patient rather than per procedure, working? It’s a question the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Innovation Center is asking the public. CMS has been the driver of the preventative care model,…Read More…