BUFFALO, N.Y. – Two of western
’s largest health
insurers are the latest to sign on to a nationwide push to reform
how patient reimbursement rates are set.
Attorney General Andrew Cuomo says Independent Health and
HealthNow New York will no longer use a faulty database to
calculate reimbursement rates for patients who see doctors outside
their insurance networks.
,
Conn.-based
and MVP Healthcare of Albany.
Cuomo says the Ingenix database, Read the rest of this entry »

The coverage at issue was established in 1996 by the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA. A key goal was ensuring that people who lost their jobs were able to remain insured. HIPAA works in tandem with COBRA, a federal law that extends job-based group insurance coverage, entirely at the individual’s expense, for up to three years after a person leaves or loses a job. (COBRA stands for Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Read the rest of this entry »

Fitness centers stocked with the latest in high-tech machinery and staffed by fitness professionals can be a huge help for those interested in getting or staying in shape.
For the days you don’t have time to get to the gym, or you’d like a change of pace, there’s always a home gym.
Studies show the closer a gym is to your house, the more likely you are to use it. And home gyms receive the most use of all. So, if you’re intent on keeping your Read the rest of this entry »

Yet despite the slowdown, most health-care costs continue to rise, with consumers’ out-of-pocket expenses having increased 40 percent in the last 10 years, largely due to an aging population and chronic diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes, a second report found.
.
“National health spending declined to 6.1 percent in 2007, the slowest rate of growth since 1998 and 0.6 percent lower than the 6.7 percent growth in 2006,” Micah Hartman, Read the rest of this entry »

Lawrence, KS    Dec 21, 2008 in
[prMac.com] Venice & Santa Barbara, California – Spinning, the worldwide leader in indoor group cycling, has announced the iSPINNING fitness application available on the Apple(R) iPhone App Store. iSPINNING, free for a limited time only, is an innovative new cardio and cycling application that compiles real-time data for fitness tracking. iSPINNING is the first of a suite of health and fitness apps enabled by Read the rest of this entry »

BANGALORE, Jan 9 (Reuters) – Shares of at least four home health service providers were trading down a day after a Congressional advisory panel recommended Medicare changes that could see the industry’s reimbursement rates reduced by as much as 5.5 percent.
Shares of LHC Group Inc fell as much as 18 percent to hit a low of $27.51 on Thursday’s news and Almost Family Inc shares fell 10 percent to a low of $40.10 earlier in the day.
‘If legislated, Read the rest of this entry »

By Mike Adams, January 23, 2009 | Key concepts:
,
for charging patients 18% interest on medical debt.
Health care in America is a profit-centered business, of course, and that involves extracting as much money from patients as possible. Allina Hospitals likely would have liked to charge even more for financing medical debt, but state law limits the interest rate to 18 percent.
The Minnesota AG wants the hospitals to issue refunds to patients Read the rest of this entry »

The Spinning program offers an energizing, cycling-inspired group exercise
training program with expert coaching, exhilarating music and a unique
mind/body philosophy — all at a self-directed pace. The Spinning program has
reached more than 30,000 clubs and millions of enthusiasts in 80 countries
worldwide. Venice, California-based Mad Dogg Athletics, Inc. is the worldwide
leader in indoor group cycling bikes, education and products. The company
works Read the rest of this entry »

iTMP Technology announced the launch of SMHEART LINK, a new technology that aims to bring “unparalleled health and fitness capabilities to Apple (
) iPhone and iPod touch users” and which allows iPhone to double as a heart monitor and fitness tracking system.
SMHEART LINK is a wireless bridge that collects data from distributed health and fitness sensors such as heart rate monitors and cycling sensors and sends it to the iPhone via Read the rest of this entry »

ARROYO GRANDE, CA, Dec 10, 2008 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) –
With unemployment possibly reaching as high as 9% in the next year,
BestHealthcareRates.com is fielding a record number of questions
about COBRA alternatives for family health insurance plans. Contrary
to popular misconceptions, COBRA is not a health insurance plan;
rather, it is a law named the Consolidated Omnibus Budget
Reconciliation Act. COBRA protects employees in the event they Read the rest of this entry »