CSBJ Daily

Kaiser Permanente Colorado will provide $155 million in health care financial relief during the next two years.
The deal between the state’s Department of Insurance and Kaiser was announced today, and will be in the form of premium credits or enhanced benefits to employers and individual customers of Kaiser Permanente Colorado. Kaiser […]

<p>Congress is exploring options for food safety in the wake of  the nationwide salmonella outbreak.</p><p>Jeffrey Levi, executive director of Trusts for America&rsquo;s  Health, testified before Congress and urged the Food and Drug Administration to  provide detailed plans to make food safer.</p><p>His report identified major gaps in the nation&rsquo;s food safety  system, including obsolete laws, misallocation […]

The number of underinsured Americans has increased 60 percent since 2003 and health care premiums have skyrocketed 91 percent since 2000, says New York-based health research foundation The Commonwealth Fund.
The results of its most recent analysis were published this week in the Health Affairs journal.
Last year, 17.2 million Americans said that their […]

More children from low-income families will be eligible for health care coverage under Medicaid and the Child Health Plan Plus because of a bill that Gov. Bill Ritter signed this morning.
Ritter signed SB 160 to increase the income level for eligibility for CHP + from 205 percent of the federal […]

The Colorado Hospital Association has developed guidelines to help create payment policies for medical mistakes.
The guidelines suggest that hospitals should adjust charges for services related to 28 serious, preventable events as defined by the National Quality Forum.
The mistakes fall into six categories: surgical, product or device, patient protection, care management, […]

The Consumer Health Care Transparency Act became effective this week.
The Act requires the state’s insurance commissioner to work with the Colorado Hospital Association to include information about charges for the 25 most common inpatient procedures and include them in a hospital’s report card.
The bill, HB 1393, was sponsored by Rep. […]

Colorado’s dental workforce is aging – at least in the rural areas of the state.
The Colorado Health Institute released a report that shows nearly half of dentists in rural areas were 55 or older, compared to 37 percent of those working in urban areas.
Other findings include:
1. No significant income differences between urban and rural dentists
2. […]

While overall health care costs in Colorado and Wyoming have risen 12 percent above 2007 levels, average premiums have risen 7 percent during the same period.
That’s according to the Mountain States Employers Council 2008 Health and Welfare Plans Survey.
Results also showed that employers still cover the majority of health […]

Wellness and preventive measures have reached a tipping point with the nation’s employers.
That’s the word from a survey released by Benefit Resources, which explores employers’ health care strategies, health benefits philosophy and opinion, health plan management and consumer-driven health care.
More than 72 percent of employers have, or want, a wellness program with a health-risk assessment, […]

For the fourth year in a row, Pinnacol Assurance will issue a general dividend to its workers’ compensation policyholders.
Eligible Colorado businesses will receive dividend checks this month totaling about $55 million.
With this year’s distribution, the company will have returned more than $227 million in general dividends to Colorado’s business community since 2005. Statewide, Pinnacol is […]