With an estimated 750,000 Americans traveling abroad for in-patient and out-patient procedures, insurance plans are beginning to cover treatment overseas. To make travel abroad even more attractive, these plans often throw in a bonus for employees if they agree to undergo elective surgeries abroad, or they offer to split the cost savings between the employer and worker, says the Wall Street Journal. Among the employers jumping on the medical tourism bandwagon are: Maine-based supermarket chain Hannaford Bros. Co., which began allowing its 18,000 insured workers and dependents to travel to an internationally accredited hospital in Singapore for surgical hip and knee replacements; the company’s self-funded plan, administered by Aetna Inc., waives out-of-pocket expenses, saving patients up to $3,000, and reimburses all travel costs. Corporate Synergies Group Inc., which advises companies on worker benefits, says at least a dozen of its clients with 250 to 2,000 employees ...
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LAWYERS ’R’ USFrom: feeds.feedburner.com
Post Date: 2008-03-04 05:30:58
Congress is back shooting marbles over consumer product safety. With consumers shaken up by tainted Chinese imports, many companies have already been instituting internal safety checks -- but the Senate wants to help the lawyers too, says the Wall Street Journal. Under the latest version of a bill sponsored by Arkansas Democrat Mark Pryor, the Consumer Product Safety Commission is in for a major expansion: The bill would more than double the agency’s budget by 2015, to $155 million fro...
more MAINTAIN CONTRACT INTEGRITYFrom: feeds.feedburner.com
Post Date: 2008-03-04 05:30:57
The right solution to the foreclosure crisis must keep families in their homes, restore their financial security and preserve mortgage credit for the majority of American homeowners who are not delinquent on their mortgages, says David G. Kittle, chairman-elect of the Mortgage Bankers Association. Unfortunately, bankruptcy legislation -- empowering local bankruptcy judges with the ability to amend the terms of mortgage contracts -- is being advocated by many as the best solution to the problem...
more THE NEWEST FRONTIERFrom: feeds.feedburner.com
Post Date: 2008-03-04 05:30:56
When people think of recent American immigrants -- particularly Latinos -- it tends to be in terms of a handful of states (California, Texas, New York, Illinois and Florida) and a handful of gateway cities (New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Miami and Chicago). But this is a habit that needs to be broken, says the Economist. One of the most striking demographic trends of the past couple of decades has been the dispersal of America’s immigrant population: Immigrants are se...
more ADVANCING HEALTH ITFrom: feeds.feedburner.com
Post Date: 2008-03-04 05:30:55
Google’s recent announcement of its Google Health Web service and a partnership with an Ohio health care system to advance personalized medical records appear to be innovative and promising developments, says the Washington Times. Under the narrow, roughly eight-week pilot program with Cleveland Clinic: As many as 10,000 patients are expected to volunteer for access to electronic health records. The records will contain patient data such as diagnoses, prescriptions and treatments, a...
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