Ilant Health launched out of stealth Tuesday. The company serves employers and payers and helps identify patients in need of obesity treatment and matches them to the care best for them.

This year’s HLTH conference brought a bevy of news announcements — from partnerships to new product features to acquisitions and more. In this list, MedCity News compiled short summaries for 11 of the conference’s most notable announcements.

In this episode, we discuss SCAN Health Plan’s recent launch of SCAN Inspired, a Medicare Advantage plan designed for women.

Enrollment in Medicare Advantage is increasing, but the program has been drawing scrutiny from the government. Can the program be saved? One expert believes Medicare Advantage is a failed experiment. Another thinks that while the program has its flaws, it shows tremendous potential.

HLTH 2023 introduced a new program focused on technology trends for and perspectives from payers in a series of conversations around AI, health equity and healthcare innovation.

Spring Health and Highmark Health are collaborating to launch Mental Well-Being, a solution that offers therapy, medication and other services for some Highmark members.

Cigna recently agreed to pay $172 million to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act. One expert said this is just a small part of the problem, while another called for more clarity from the government.

What does the future hold with AI and the healthcare ecosystem? Camille Harrison with GuideWell, Florida Blue joins the Payer’s Place to share her thoughts.

Policymakers must work to increase access to the Medicare Kidney Disease Education Benefit and expand the Medicare annual wellness benefit to include kidney disease screening. These reforms will catch disease at earlier stages and equip patients to better recognize their risk.

Weaving companionship into health care as we would a blockbuster drug can help us circumvent expensive healthcare services like emergency department visits and hospitalizations.

In a value-based partnership with ApolloMed, SCAN is launching a Provider Specific Plan called Compass. It is also announcing a Medicare Advantage plan designed for women called SCAN Inspired.

CEO of Alignment Health joins the Payer’s Place and details how the growth of Medicare Advantage will only help patients in the future.

C-SNPs are Medicare Advantage plans formulated to meet the desired needs of people living with chronic diseases. These plans are different from traditional Medicare plans because they’re only available to people who fit the special needs category that the plan serves.

New York, Florida, Texas and Minnesota terminated Medicaid coverage for some enrollees for “unallowable or potentially unallowable reasons” during the Covid-19 public health emergency, according to a recent Office of Inspector General report.

The average monthly plan premium for Medicare Advantage is expected to increase only slightly in 2024 from 2023, CMS said. About 73% of beneficiaries will see no increase at all.

A new study found that MA beneficiaries have more than 50% fewer inpatient stays and 22% fewer emergency department visits than traditional Medicare enrollees.

As value-based care models take hold, the time is ripe for rehab therapists to position themselves as primary players in the movement toward delivering optimal quality and value in the broader healthcare ecosystem.

There are concerns that Medicare Advantage TV ads are misleading patients. A new KFF analysis of Medicare Advantage TV ads found that the ads often rely on celebrity endorsements and suggest that seniors are missing out on benefits that they’re entitled to.

Americans are getting older, and some healthcare leaders expect this to be a challenge for the healthcare industry. Others, however, think this is an opportunity for the industry to make improvements, such as engaging adults in their care before they turn 65.

The commercial market has struggled to adopt value-based care, but HealthPartners has had some success, according to Mark Hansberry, senior vice president and chief marketing officer of the company. During a conference, he shared five rules for scaling value-based care, including creating trust and providing real-time data.

For the gridlock in mental healthcare to be resolved, 100% of mental healthcare providers must practice measurement-based care, utilizing validated rating scales to monitor and measure longitudinal outcomes for every patient. And payers then must offer reimbursement that appropriately rewards providers for delivering high-quality, effective care, and incentivize proactive mental health management.

Dr. Anil Singh shares his insights into the strategies employed by the organization to identify the most effective digital solutions for their members.

When Medicaid expansion was first enacted, it was a hot topic debate between Democrats and Republicans. But more and more states are starting to expand Medicaid, including several conservative states.

Pharmaceutical industry observers say CVS Health’s creation of Cordavis, a new biosimilar drugs company, is part of a strategy to make its move into this market as profitable as possible.

Solera Health recently launched a program that aims to help patients who are interested in GLP-1s gain access to lifestyle change support. It also provides educational materials on GLP-1s.

In rural areas, the share of eligible beneficiaries enrolled in MA plans nearly quadrupled from 11% in 2010 to 40% in 2023, according to new research from KFF. This represents 400,000 rural MA beneficiaries in 2010 and 1.8 million in 2023.

A new survey from Alignment Health found that economic instability, food insecurity, lack of support and transportation access are the biggest social barriers for seniors.

Medicare Advantage beneficiaries with a cancer diagnosis spend $3,996 on out-of-pocket costs and premiums annually, versus $6,091 for traditional Medicare beneficiaries with cancer, a new report found.

The CEO of Providence Health Plan visits the Payer’s Place and addresses the future of payment models.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has announced two value-based care alternative payment models set to launch in July 2024, one focused on dementia and one on primary care.