Insurers Partner With Drug Stores To Offer Medicare Rx Plans

Aetna and Coventry announced separate arrangements to offer Medicare prescription drug plans, in an attempt to woo the burgeoning senior market.

Aetna is partnering with CVS to provide its plan, which has no deductible for generic drugs and costs $26 per month in premiums, Reuters reports. It also offers one-on-one counseling about prescription directions and potential drug interactions, according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Seniors may use the plan at 7,200 CVS locations and more than 65,000 pharmacies in Aetna’s Medicare network, the Wall Street Journal notes.

Coventry, meanwhile, has joined forced with Walgreens, Wal-Mart, and Target to offer its plan with an average monthly premium of $25.60 and no annual deductible, Reuters reports.

“Everyone will be much more aggressive this year and there potentially could be a lot of movement between plans,” Dave Shove, an analyst with Bank of Montreal in New York, told BusinessWeek. Providing Medicare drugs “is a commoditized generic, over-the-counter world now and it may be a better fit for the Wal-Marts of the world than for the insurers.”

Payers Pay Up – 6 Recent Fines on Insurers

Health insurers are no strangers to fines and other disciplinary actions. Payers this year have felt increasing pressure from state insurance departments to improve efficiency and quality–or pay the price.

Even though insurers have been busy looking for ways to curb escalating healthcare costs and reduce administrative spending under MLR requirements, some have had to shell out big bucks for wrongly denied coverage, improper claims processing, and unprotected health information. Such penalties can provide a cautionary tale for other health payers to get their own houses in order.

With that in mind, FierceHealthPayer presents six recent fines on health insurers. Click on a company below to learn more.