Jeff Lagasse

Author's posts

Digital health solutions boost efficiency, though ROI is yet to come

As COVID-19 hits its four-year anniversary, healthcare has seen the potential to transform through digital health solutions – including the ability to help reduce nursing shortages, expedite patient care, minimize in-person costs and create more produc…

Technology driving health plan strategy, survey finds

Sixty-two percent of health plan leaders are investing in technology for digital transformation as the number-one way to achieve organizational goals in 2024, a

Ukrainian man pleads guilty to 2020 UVM cyberattack

In 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a ransomware attack disrupted patient care at the University of Vermont Medical Center (UVM) Health Network in Burlington, Vermont, costing the health system millions. Four years later, a Ukrainian n…

CMS issues guidance on allowing Medicare beneficiaries to pay Rx costs monthly

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has released the second part of draft guidance for the Medicare Prescription Payment Plan that outlines requirements for Medicare Part D plan sponsors for the program’s first year, in 2025.
These include o…

Cigna, HelloFresh strike partnership on healthy meal choices

Cigna Healthcare, the health benefits division of The Cigna Group, and meal kit company HelloFresh are collaborating to offer discounted access to the latter’s meals to as many as 12 million Cigna Healthcare customers, through their employers.

Digital nutrition registration aiding pop health efforts in Sweden

Preventing malnutrition in older people is an important part of maintaining good health, and in Sweden, they’re taking that seriously, digitizing nutrition registration in an effort to prolong good health among the elderly in that country.

Half of rural hospitals in the red, pressured by high Medicare Advantage enrollment

America’s rural health safety net is feeling pressured, with half of all rural hospitals in the U.S. now in the red. And according to new research from Chartis, high enrollment of rural residents in Medicare Advantage plans could make the situation worse.

CDC expanding University of Michigan hypertension model to other states

Embedding pharmacists as part of the healthcare team at University of Michigan primary care clinics and community retail pharmacies has proven so effective in controlling blood pressure that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now replica…

Humana sued over alleged Medicare Advantage 340B overpayments

Montgomery, Alabama-based Baptist Health is suing major insurer Humana over alleged Medicare Advantage underpayments for outpatient drugs purchased through the 340B program.
The hospital claims that reimbursements for the drugs were determined by a pay…

CDC cautiously eyeing new COVID-19 variant

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now monitoring a new COVID-19, BA.2.87.1, which has more than 30 changes in the coronavirus spike protein and has been detected nine times in the Republic of South Africa.