The Wall Street Journal calls our attention to the Kaiser Family Foundations annual survey of employer healthcare costs.

Annual premiums rose 5% to hit $20,576 for an employer-provided family plan in 2019, according to the yearly poll of employers by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. On average, employers bore 71% of that cost, while employees paid the rest.

For an individual employer plan, the average total premium cost was $7,188 in the 2019 survey, or 4% higher than last year. 

Health Payer Intelligence reports on the National Business Group on Health’s annual survey on large employer health benefit plan trends.

“While most large employers are not planning major changes to their plan design, they continue to increase efforts to improve quality, access and convenience by providing workers with more plan choices and greater access to virtual care solutions and mental health services,” said Brian Marcotte, president and CEO of the National Business Group on Health. “Additionally, more employers are providing decision-support tools and technology to simplify their employees’ experience and help them navigate the health care system.” 

The FEHBlog received an email from NCQA today inviting him to vote in Modern Healthcare’s annual poll of the 100 most influential people in healthcare. You too can vote at this link until October 7.  The ballot offers 300 candidates and allows a reader to make five choices.  Out of gratitude for NCQA alerting me to this vote, one of my five votes went to Peggy O’Kane, NCQA’s president. The FEHBlog is not among the 300 candidates so you have all five of your votes.

As we now are in the middle of National Healthcare Information Technology Week, here’s a link to the HIMSS trade association’s celebratory site.

Fierce Healthcare informs us that CVS Health is launching

a new pharmacy solution aimed at cutting down the time it takes for patients to obtain specialty drugs.  The new tool is built in two parts: Specialty Expedite and Specialty Connect. The former is designed to cut down the prior authorization and onboarding process significantly with the goal of reaching a three-day process.  

Onboarding for a new medication can take a long time—sometimes weeks—for some patients, which can leave them falling off the wagon for needed care, CVS said in a brief on the new solution.