Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Patient First Stops Accepting Some Anthem Plans In Mid-Atlantic Care Centers
Patient First, which operates nine urgent and primary care medical centers in the Richmond area and dozens of facilities in the Mid-Atlantic, is no longer accepting some Anthem health insurance plans for payment. Patient First stopped accepting, as of Feb. 2, new patients who are members of Anthem, HealthKeepers and out-of-state BlueCross BlueShield plans except CareFirst Blue Cross Blue Shield. (Smith, 2/10)
Medicaid coverage provider Centene has ended a search for six hard drives that contained the personal information of roughly 950,000 customers more than a month after the equipment turned up missing. The St. Louis-based company said that an employee admitted to placing the six hard drives "in a locked receptacle for secure destruction," according to a brief statement filed Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. (Murphy, 2/11)
Despite much hand-wringing over the size and quality of provider networks on the health insurance marketplaces, many top-notch hospitals are available in-network in marketplace plans this year, a new study found. However, more than half of those hospitals participated in fewer plans than last year, limiting their in-network availability to just one marketplace plan in a growing number of cases. (Andrews, 2/12)
