The Phia Group Blog Posts

Empowering Plans: P202 – Senator Sanders: “Stop ripping us off.”

On September 26, 2024
Attorneys Brady Bizarro and Andrew Silverio discuss the recent senate committee hearing on GLP-1 drug pricing and strategies that self-funded employers are using to manage the extreme costs of these drugs while we wait and hope for congressional action.

The Phia Group Announces the Hiring of Justin Forton as a Client Success Account Executive

On September 19, 2024
CANTON, MA – September 19, 2024 – In its continued dedication to bolstering the health benefits industry, The Phia Group has hired Justin Forton as a Client Success Account Executive. Justin will channel his data analytics experience and industry-focused customer service expertise to support and collaborate with The Phia Group’s clientele.

The First Ten: Medicare Unveils Inaugural List of Negotiated Drug Prices

On September 16, 2024
Last month, while many of us were busy vacationing or doing last-minute back-to-school shopping, the Biden administration announced that it had reached an agreement with the titans of the pharma industry to lower prices on the 10 costliest prescription drugs under Medicare, thus bringing to fruition Democrats' decades-long push to allow the government to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical manufacturers. While individual plans had previously been able to haggle over prices with Big Pharma, this development marks a seminal moment as it is the first time that Medicare used its clout to be able to negotiate for the program as a whole.

Empowering Plans: P201 – Diving Into the Parity Pool: MHPAEA’s Latest Updates

On September 12, 2024
Regulators finally announced the long-awaited MHPAEA Final Rules on September 9, 2024. Many of these changes will directly affect group health plan design and modify the NQTL comparative analysis testing requirements - many of which will be significant for plans as they prepare for 2025. Join attorneys Jennifer McCormick and Bryan Dunton for their discussion on several critical considerations for plans as renewal season approaches.

The Phia Group Announces Enhancement to Ecosystem of Services: Care Empowered Pricing

On September 11, 2024
The Phia Group’s industry-leading ecosystem of cost containment services, including ICE, Subrogation & Recovery, PACE, and Phia Unwrapped, has been bolstered with Care Empowered Pricing, a cutting-edge Reference-Based Pricing (RBP) model providing quality care and fair pricing tailored to your needs.

Empowering Plans: P200 – Recognizing Our Blind Spots

On September 5, 2024
Dr. Marty Makary is a New York Times bestselling author, renowned Johns Hopkins surgeon, and globally recognized expert on medical research. In its most recent edition of the Empowering Plans podcast series (“Recognizing Our Blind Spots”), Dr. Makary was a special guest as he engaged in conversation with CEO Adam V. Russo about his new book, Blind Spots: When Medicine Gets It Wrong, and What It Means for Our Health, https://geni.us/blindspots. This is an episode jampacked with enlightening and engaging anecdotes that will leave you with new insight into commonly held assumptions about healthcare. After all, in order to fix the healthcare industry, people need to have access to correct information about modern medicine.

Section 1557 Final Rule: Where Do We Stand?

On August 30, 2024
The implications of the Section 1557 Final Rule are currently in flux since the Final Rule was issued on April 26, 2024. The purpose of the Final Rule was to extend the protections against discrimination in healthcare, with a particular emphasis on gender identity. The inclusion of gender-affirming care within the protection against sex discrimination was a huge step forward in strengthening the scope of Section 1557 beyond what was originally afforded when the rule first passed.

Empowering Plans: P199 – Summer Regulation Rundown

On August 29, 2024
The regulators rush to finalize a suite of marquee regulations as the clock gradually runs out on the Biden administration. Even when finalized, these regulations may be vulnerable in the post-Chevron landscape. Attorneys Kelly Dempsey and Nick Bonds pick apart some of the big rules we’re looking forward to and the challenges they may face.

Healthcare in Rural America

On August 19, 2024
Whether it’s met with great anticipation or utter dread, summer will soon be giving way to autumn. For many people living in picturesque New England, where The Phia Group is headquartered, seasonal change means an upcoming weekend of leaf-peeping. But when we’re checking out apple orchards and roadside maple sugar shacks, it’s easy to forget the sobering reality: life isn’t always so sweet for residents in these one-stoplight rural outposts as many face imposing barriers to healthcare.

Don't Be Surprised - Phia's Keys to Success with The No Surprises Act and Appeals Management

On August 19, 2024
As the dog days of summer drag on, the No Surprises Act and its benefactors are feeling the heat. Case volume is overloading the IDR process. Courts are split over whether and how parties can enforce arbitration awards. Payers, including group health plans, are paying nearly four times as much for services as CMS. Combined, this all threatens to undermine the original intent of the law and drive up costs for all. Now, more than ever, it is paramount to understand how these developments impact you and to enact a process to triage billing disputes - separating NSA claims from appeals. Phia is the option for success in this arena. Join our legal team on Tuesday, August 20th, at 1:00 P.M. ET, as we discuss our unique, battle tested processes for handling NSA claims and appeals. From utilizing intelligent out-of-network pricing methodologies and benchmarking to deploying cutting edge appeal review software, we cover all the bases and reveal the best practices for success.

Empowering Plans: P198 – Healthcare on the Ballot

On August 15, 2024
Nick Bonds and Corey Crigger are hosting this political edition of the Empowering Plans Podcast series. With an election looming in November, Nick and Corey take a look at the policies and agendas from the Harris/Walz and Trump/Vance tickets. They discuss the impact that each administration could have on the self-funded industry and the country, in the most civil political discourse you can find. Tune in to hear what each nominee has to say about: Medical Debt, the Opioid Crisis, Public Healthcare options, and more!

Health Over Wealth

On August 5, 2024
In 2017, New York Times medical journalist Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal published “An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back.” It quickly became one of this century’s most influential healthcare books, enlightening the masses about the corporate greed embedded in a trillion-dollar industry, one that is ostensibly grounded in altruistic endeavors.

Empowering Plans: P197 – The Concerns About PBMs and the Demand for Reform

On August 1, 2024
In this episode of the Empowering Plans podcast, attorneys Jon Jablon and Kendall Jackson break down the consequences of PBM steerage. Join us in the discussion of the Federal Trade Commission’s inquiry into PBM practices and the push for legislation to increase transparency in the market and hold PBMs accountable.

What the Overturning of Chevron Means for Healthcare

On July 19, 2024
For the past forty years, federal agencies have had considerable latitude to interpret and enforce regulations and subsequently advance regulatory initiatives. Per the precedent established in the Supreme Court’s 1984 decision in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, courts have had to defer to federal agencies regarding legal challenges over ambiguously written laws passed by Congress. The rationale was as follows: The public servants employed by the federal agencies, whether they be scientists, engineers, law enforcement officials, economists, or experts in another field, have more specialized expertise in the given matter – even more so than Supreme Court justices -- and should thus be accountable for implementing the law. But effective late last month, the High Court, believing that unelected government officials should not wield such tremendous influence, overturned that precedent, thus yielding unprecedented power to the courts to use their own discretion in interpreting laws – many of which pertain to the country’s healthcare ecosystem.

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