California Health News

News & Announcements about health insurance in California




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CalOptima Orange County Medi-Cal Data Breach

October 17, 2016 By Kevin Knauss Leave a Comment

On or about August 17, 2016, a departing CalOptima employee downloaded data, which included protected health information, to an unencrypted USB flash drive. Shortly after, the departing employee returned the USB flash drive to CalOptima. While we are still investigating the contents of the flash drive, we do not believe the information was shared.

Filed Under: CalOptima Tagged With: Breach, California, CalOptima, Data, Health, Medi-Cal, Plan

Blue Shield $5 Teladoc Consultations for 2017

September 29, 2016 By Kevin Knauss Leave a Comment

Blue Shield of California will make Teladoc consultations a $5 copayment for members of their individual and family plans. The $5 Teladoc consultation will be available to both Blue Shield’s HMO and PPO non-grandfathered plans in 2017.

Filed Under: Blue Shield Tagged With: Blue Shield, Copayment, Covered California, Family, Health, HMO, Inasurance, Individual, Plans, PPO, Teladoc

Gaining employer-sponsored health insurance and Covered California

September 10, 2016 By Kevin Knauss Leave a Comment

Health, Insurance, Plans, Small Group, Employer, Dependents, ACA, Subsidy, Covered California

The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released a review of the rules regarding when a family becomes ineligible for the Covered California subsidy after being offered employer-sponsored health insurance. While the presentation is geared toward health insurance agents, there is good information relevant to everyone in the file. As CMS notes, gaining employer-sponsored health insurance while enrolled in Covered California is a Common Complex Situation.

Filed Under: Covered California, Employers Tagged With: ACA, Covered California, Employer, Health, Insurance, Small Group, Subsidy

Covered California health and dental plan changes for 2017

August 27, 2016 By Kevin Knauss 4 Comments

Copayments, Coinsurance, Deductible, Maximum, Pediatric, Child, Dental, Adult

Covered California hosted a webinar where they went over the numerous changes to the health plans for 2017. This included the expansion of some health plans into more counties, the conversion of PPO plans to EPO for one carrier, and the addition of a HMO plan for another carrier. They also reviewed the minor and major cost sharing changes to their metal tier level plans offered by all the carriers.

Filed Under: Covered California Tagged With: 2017, Coinsurance, Copayments, Covered California, Dental, Health, Plans

IRS employer health care tax estimate tools

June 10, 2016 By Kevin Knauss Leave a Comment

Whether you’re an employer or an individual taxpayer, the Taxpayer Advocate Service has several tools available to assist you in estimating credits and payments related to the Affordable Care Act. The Taxpayer Advocate Service recently added a tool to help employers understand how the employer shared responsibility provisions apply to their organization.

Filed Under: IRS Tagged With: Estimating, Health, Insurance, IRS, Tax, Tools

New California consumer health insurance complaint center

March 2, 2016 By Kevin Knauss Leave a Comment

The California Department of Insurance (CDI) announced today that several portals are now available to assist consumers, insurers* and health care providers in communicating and interacting with the department through the complaint process.

Filed Under: CA DMHC, Cal DOI Tagged With: Complaint, Health, Insurance

New California online healthcare price and quality tool released

September 21, 2015 By Kevin Knauss Leave a Comment

Commissioner Jones directed the California Department of Insurance to obtain federal Affordable Care Act grant funds to enhance transparency in healthcare pricing. Commissioner Jones then partnered with UCSF and Consumer Reports to create California Healthcare Compare (HealthcareCompare.insurance.ca.gov), a first step in achieving cost and quality transparency in California’s healthcare marketplace.

Filed Under: Cal DOI Tagged With: California, Commissioner, Dave Jones, Department of Insurance, Health, Insurance, Online, Price, Quality

Almost 1 million consumers use SEP to get health coverage in 2015

August 14, 2015 By Kevin Knauss Leave a Comment

Between February 23 and June 30, 2015, about 944,000 new consumers made plan selections through HealthCare.gov using a SEP. Eighty-four percent of plan selections occurred via three types of SEPs: 50 percent of plan selections occurred via SEPs for the loss of health coverage or “minimum essential coverage”, 19 percent occurred via SEPs for being determined ineligible for Medicaid, and 15 percent were as a result of tax season SEP (Table 1). The remaining 16 percent of plan selections were attributable to other types of SEPs (see glossary).

Filed Under: CMS, Healthcare.gov Tagged With: Health, Insurance, Qualifying Event, Special Enrollment Period

More cuts to health agent commissions, can independents survive?

October 30, 2014 By Kevin Knauss 4 Comments

Health insurance commissions continue to erode, pushing out the independent agent.

The commission structure for individual and family plans has been on a steady decline since the Affordable Care Act began to be implemented in 2011. As the commissions to agents have decreased, the request from clients for assistance has increased. Now a major carrier has announced a reduction in commissions for small group plans. There […]

Filed Under: Certified Agents, Commissions Tagged With: Agents, Commissions, Health

Health Insurance Agent and Broker Guild for California

May 6, 2014 By Kevin Knauss Leave a Comment

Health agent on hold with Covered California during open enrollment.

Aside from the enumerable website issues of both Healthcare.gov and Covered California, perhaps the largest problem of the ACA open enrollment centered around accessible and reliable information concerning how to enroll for the new ACA health plans. California health agents and brokers, who were handling hundreds of client enrollments each, bore the brunt of this […]

Filed Under: CalHABG Tagged With: Agents, Brokers, California, Health, Insurance

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