Jeff Lagasse

Author's posts

Cleveland Clinic teams with Lilly and Anthem on heart surgery option for Lilly health plan

Cleveland Clinics boasts expertise in cardiac surgery, and now that expertise is available to eligible Eli Lilly and Company employees, retirees and their family members through the Cleveland Clinic Cardiac Concierge Program. 
The new program is in col…

UnitedHealthcare rolls out virtual option to help patients remotely access hearing care

UnitedHealthcare Hearing has introduced a new virtual care offering that’s meant to expand access to custom-programmed hearing aids while reducing the need for in-person appointments for fittings and adjustments. This option is available for those enro…

AstraZeneca vaccine shows 79% efficacy in phase III trial

AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine has just undergone a phase III trial in the U.S., demonstrating 79% efficacy at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 and 11% efficacy at preventing severe disease and hospitalization.

FCC issues guidelines for new round of a $250 million COVID-19 telehealth program

Acting Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel circulated a proposal this week that, if adopted, would establish round 2 of the COVID-19 Telehealth Program, a $249.95 million dollar federal initiative that builds on the $200 mi…

AHA signals opposition to Optum, UnitedHealthGroup’s acquisition of Change Healthcare

Optum and Change Healthcare announced in January their intent to merge, uniting two of the nation’s largest technology and service companies, but the move has now received pushback from the American Hospital Association, which said the proposed deal ra…

Medicare for All push resurrected by U.S. House of Representatives

When Joe Biden became the Democratic Presidential nominee last year, it was assumed that talk of Medicare for All was effectively dead. The concept, popularized by Vermont Senator and former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, would have created a g…

Amazon Care’s nationwide telehealth expansion ‘may be bigger than the sum of the parts,’ says firm

Amazon signaled its intention this week to expand its Amazon Care app-based telehealth services to its employees and to other companies across the U.S. — services that, to date, have only been available to the retail giant’s Washington-based workforce…

Executives rate provider burnout as a disrupting force in healthcare

The most potentially disruptive forces facing hospitals and health systems in the next three years are provider burnout, disengagement and resulting shortages among healthcare professionals, according to a new survey of 551 healthcare executives.

Humana introduces CenterWell brand for payer-agnostic healthcare offerings

Health insurer Humana announced a new brand this week, CenterWell, which encompasses and connects a range of the company’s payer-agnostic healthcare services offerings. The first Humana-owned care services to adopt the new brand will be its senior-focu…

Mischievous activity during the pandemic will lead to more healthcare fraud recoveries in 2021

Though there appears to be a dim light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, much remains uncertain — everything from the timing of school reopenings to the nature and business of the healthcare industry. Part of that uncertainty revolves around fraud li…