AIS's Health Business Daily

March 31, 2008

"The for-profit [health] plans will continue to be challenged by not-for-profits to the extent that they're a little more aggressive on pricing. They can be more aggressive on pricing because they don't have the same shareholder demands, they have excess reserves.... [They can afford] "lower profitability and not continue to build up reserves at the same rate as they have in recent years."

-- Shellie Stoddard, credit analyst with Standard & Poor's, told AIS's Health Plan Week.

Today's Featured Story

Historically Rocky Marriage Between Health Plans and Network Providers Is Becoming Even More Contentious

$65 million

…was paid to physician groups in 2006 in HMO-based pay-for-performance rewards by Calif. health plans, according to the Integrated healthcare Assn.

Medicare Part D: A Comprehensive Analysis of CMS Rules
This 217-page book includes chapters on sponsors, eligibility and enrollment, formularies, and CMS enforcement - and distills from thousands of pages of government regulations and guidance the major rules, guidelines and deadlines you need to comprehend this program. Click here.

People On the Move

The Louisiana Health Care Quality Forum named Shannon Robshaw to executive director, the top paid job position at the private group. Robshaw was with the state Department of Health and Hospitals.…Eaton Lattman, M.D., dean of research and graduate education in the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences at Johns Hopkins University, has been appointed CEO and executive director of the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute in Buffalo, N.Y. Lattman will assume the position on July 1.

AIS's Pharmacy Benefit Survey Results
Now available quarterly as Excel spreadsheets! These survey results track growth and consolidation in the industry, and trends in costs, utilization and benefit design. Click here.

Today's Featured Health Business Job Opening

Catalyst Rx
Director, Clinical Operations
Des Moines, Iowa

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