UnitedHealthcare awarded grants to 66 nonprofits across 12 states. The grants will support those struggling with social isolation, behavioral health, food insecurity and other social determinants of health.

It’s clear that services like telehealth and remote patient monitoring have potential to provide value within the healthcare industry, but hospitals and digital health companies need to show payers clearer evidence of the outcomes these care modalities can produce in order to earn reimbursement, panelists argued during MedCity’s INVEST conference.

UnitedHealthcare Rewards members can earn up to $1,000 per year by meeting daily activity goals, tracking sleep and fulfilling other one-time health activities. The program is intended to incentivize healthy habits, the insurer said.

UnitedHealthcare has recently introduced a set of three travel protection plans called SafeTrip, which offer healthcare insurance and trip cancellation coverage for Americans.

Through the partnership, AARP members are able to purchase prescription and over-the-counter hearing aids through UnitedHealthcare Hearing. They’ll also be able to receive free hearing tests.

After UnitedHealthcare and Aetna announced plans to launch virtual primary care plans, Cigna is rolling out its own with select employers. It’s also offering a broader suite of telehealth services to everyone enrolled in employer-sponsored plans. 

The agency has suspended enrollment in three UnitedHealthcare plans and one Anthem plan for 2022 because the plans did not spend enough of their premium incomes on medical benefits and claims. The payers can contest the suspension, though it is unclear if they plan to.

UnitedHealthcare is planning to participate in the ACA insurance exchanges in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan and Texas. This will bring its total ACA marketplace footprint to 18 states.

UnitedHealthcare and United Behavioral Health agreed to the settlement to resolve allegations that they illegally denied coverage for mental health and substance use disorder treatments. The allegations are related to business practices they no longer use, parent company UnitedHealth Group said.

Per a policy update that went in to effect July 1, the health insurance giant is not covering non-emergency services that members receive at out-of-network facilities that are outside of their service area. This update mainly affects residential treatment facilities, inpatient rehabilitation and other non-hospital-based services.

UnitedHealthcare is instituting a new policy beginning July 1 that changes how the payer assesses emergency department claims, allowing it to retroactively deny ones it deems “non-emergent” or not an emergency. The American College of Emergency Physicians has made its opposition clear, stating the policy may violate federal law.

The payer’s Community Catalyst initiative includes 23 programs that involve collaborations with various community-based organizations and health centers. They tackle different types of social determinants of health issues, including food insecurity among seniors and the health needs of those in public housing.

Bright Health has filed preliminary paperwork for an IPO, joining its rivals in the insurance technology space in going public. Though there are few confirmed details at the moment, Bright Health is reportedly looking to raise $1 billion through the offering.

U.S. Anesthesia Partners has filed lawsuits against UnitedHealthcare in Colorado and Texas, accusing the payer of forcing it out of network and intentionally interfering with its relationships with providers in those states. But, according to UnitedHealthcare, the lawsuits are an attempt to get the insurer to meet the anesthesia group’s high rate demands.

Two UnitedHealthcare policies have raised several concerns among providers, including that they may display anti-competitive behavior and could block patient access to certain healthcare services. The American Hospital Association is asking the FTC and CMS to review and potentially block these policies.

The payer will offer its Motion well-being program members access, at no additional cost, to Apple Fitness+ workout classes for six months.

The health system and payer will coordinate care for eligible Medicare Advantage patients through the ACO, with the aim of improving health outcomes and reducing costs. The ACO expands a long-standing relationship between the two entities.

Some of the biggest legal stories of the year include patients attempting to mount a class action lawsuit against Mayo Clinic after an employee improperly viewed more than 1,600 health records and the Supreme Court hearing opening arguments in a case challenging the constitutionality of the ACA’s individual mandate.

Among the areas of interest for employee benefits startups that presented in our Pitch Perfect contest are: electronic patient care records, behavioral health, caregiver support and substance abuse treatment.

Among the companies presenting on the final day of the Pitch Perfect competition will be one that offers electronic patient care records, behavioral health, caregiver support and substance abuse treatment.

This week we reveal judges for the Home Health and Employee Benefits tracks at the conference from September 21-25. Register today.

UnitedHealthcare plans to offer individual marketplace plans in Maryland in 2021. The insurer is taking a second look at the ACA exchanges after it had largely exited them.   

As insurers set premium rates for next year, many are working through the complicated math of how much Covid-19 will actually cost. It’s too early to say at this point, but these companies face another concern: how many Americans will lose their insurance if unemployment rates continue to rise? 

Four class action suits filed in early April accuse United Behavioral Health and Cigna Behavioral health of underpaying providers for mental health services. They allegedly used a third-party vendor called Viant to negotiate claims.

The MedCity INVEST Digital Health conference in Minneapolis September 17 will advance the conversation around innovation in digital health from AI in healthcare, investment trends, and healthcare business models. Here’s a look at some of the highlights of the conference.

Salt Lake City-based Myriad Genetics’ GeneSight screening analyzes specific genes as a way to predict the effectiveness of 56 common medications for depression.

The California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) has recently issued a policy sketching out how the state’s Medicaid plans can safely use the text messaging technology to connect with members.

The effort by the nation’s largest insurer to become the nation’s largest employer of clinicians received FTC approval with an agreement to divest some of the company’s holdings in the Las Vegas area to address antitrust issues. 

The bundled payment program is meant to incentivize better care coordination across the entire episode of maternity care which includes prenatal, delivery and postpartum services.

The so-called UnitedHealthcare Care Bundles program will launch next year and offer providers across 30 states the option of participating in bundled payment arrangements for eight medical procedures, mainly orthopedic and cardiac treatments and surgeries.