Medical Loss Ratio news and information

Florida is the latest state to be denied an exception to the medical-loss-ratio standard that requires individual and small-group plans to spend at least 80% of premium dollars on medical care, a CMS official said.
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Are insurers primarily obligated to maintain solvency and provide some profits to their investors or are they susceptible to public shaming for excessive profit-seeking?
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Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) introduced bicameral legislation today that would require Medigap insurance plans to spend at least 85% of every premium dollar on medical care in the group market and 80% in the individual market.
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North Dakota became the first state to be denied an exemption from the medical-loss-ratio provision of the healthcare reform law, HHS officials said Friday.
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A top CMS official on Wednesday defended the process the federal agency has used to implement measures of the health reform law in a congressional hearing that examined the regulatory effects of the 2010 act.
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Republicans hoping to overturn new regulations creating the first federal medical-loss ratio requirements for insurers cannot do so because the administration never submitted the regulations to the Senate, according to a leading Republican.
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UnitedHealth Group, the nation's largest insurer by revenue, reported strong first-quarter earnings, higher enrollment and minimal adverse affects from the reform-law requirement specifying the percentage of member premiums that insurers must spend on direct patient care. As such, the Minnetonka,...
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Two reports issued last week by the Institute of Medicine provide standards for formulating clinical practice guidelines and reviewing the scientific papers and clinical trials that underpin the guidelines. The challenge for physicians and clinical executives will be to adopt standards that reduce...
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Iowa is the eighth state to request relief from a provision in the federal health reform law that requires insurers to spend most member premiums on medical costs.
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Senior federal healthcare officials refused to offer timelines for the issuance of a series of much-anticipated regulations aimed at implementing provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
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