#1 Supreme Court Saves Obamacare What Happened? A key provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Obama’s landmark healthcare reform legislation, remained intact after a 6-3 Supreme Court decision. Many credit this decision to keeping healthcare reform from unraveling, which would have impacted millions of Americans who have enrolled through Health Exchanges since January…
#2: United States Adopts ICD-10 (finally) The U.S. healthcare industry caught up to 27 other countries by implementing the ICD-10 coding system on October 1, 2015. ICD-10 stands for the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems – 10th Revision. It is coding used by doctors, hospitals, and health plans to document diseases, diagnoses, and symptoms.…
#3: Drug Prices Soar – Bigger than Turing Martin Shkreli, founder and chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals, made headlines when he tried to justify raising the price of the drug, Daraprim, from $13.50 to $750 a tablet in 2015. This was not the only example of exponential rate hikes in the pharmaceutical industry. For…
#4: Year of the Mergers The healthcare sector had the largest share of mergers and acquisitions in 2015 totaling $724 billion, beating out Technology ($713 billion) and Real Estate ($458 billion). Aetna + Humana: Aetna will acquire Humana for $37 billion. Aetna $58.0 billion in Total Revenue $4.0 billion in Operating Income 5 million medical…
#5: UnitedHealthcare Threatens Obamacare A logo sign outside of the headquarters of UnitedHealthcare in Minnetonka, Minnesota on October 25, 2015. Photo by Kristoffer Tripplaar The largest health insurance company in the country warned regulators and stockholders that they may withdraw from the Health Insurance Marketplaces in 2017. This is a move that could force more…
#6: The Rise and Fall of Theranos Theranos is the health technology start-up that made news in 2015 for being both famous and infamous. Its founder, Elizabeth Holmes, is a bright, 31 year old self-made billionaire that dropped out of Stanford University to start this company at the ripe age of 19. As described in…
#7: Year of the Cyber Attacks What was once a problem for retailers like Target, Neiman Marcus, and Home Depot became a top priority for the Healthcare industry in 2015. Accenture warned that cyber-attacks will cost the Healthcare industry $305 billion over the next 5 years. The FBI warned of the industry’s susceptibility to attacks…
#8: Epic Systems Corporation Grows! Epic is a privately held healthcare software company that specializes in hosting and connecting electronic health records (EHR). By digitizing health records, Epic unleashes the ability for healthcare systems to improve quality, significantly reduce fraud, waste, and abuse transforming the practice of medicine. Epic’s total gross revenue was projected to…
#9: CO-OPs – Half empty or Half Full? In 2013, the Briefing Room reported on the potential pitfalls of launching Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans (CO-OPs) in every state. In less than two years, the warnings are now coming to fruition. 12 out of the 23 CO-OPs have closed their doors and will not exist in 2016…
#10: Obamacare Grows! 2015 marked the second year of the Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s landmark legislation created to help decrease the rate of uninsured. 50 Health Insurance Marketplaces launched nationwide and here are the 2015 results: More than 5 million new Americans enrolled joining the 8 million that enrolled in 2014 (65% growth). 85%…
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