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Kaiser Permanente® Q1 2020 Update

Kaiser Permanente® has released their January to June 2020 rates. Quoting is available now. All plans received a rate increase: HMOs went up 1.2% and PPOs went up 5.2%. All plans have benefit chan...

Health Net Q1 Update

Health Net reports a quarterly statewide average increase across all plans. Health Net's published rates are 3.6% for PPOs and 4.6% for HMOs.They are expanding their portfolio with new Gold HMO and PP...

2020 Health Insurance Tax to Drive Rate Increases

The IRS published a Notice stating that they expect to collect over $15.5 billion from health insurers in 2020 under the ACA’s Health Insurers Providers Fee — also known as the Health Insurance Tax (H...

Sexual Harassment Resources Available

California’s sexual harassment training law has been in the news lately. Most recently, the deadline was extended from January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2021 for California employers to provide initial se...

Western Health Advantage Service Area in 2020

Effective January 1, 2020, Western Health Advantage (WHA) will no longer be part of Canopy Health. This means members will no longer have access to Canopy affiliated medical groups in the East Bay, Sa...

Walmart and Sam’s Club Join Principal VSP Network

Principal Managed Care Vision added Walmart and Sam’s Club as in-network providers, effective September 1, 2019. That means more providers in big cities and rural areas — 9,579 new access points for a...

Anthem Blue Cross to Issue MLR Checks

Anthem Blue Cross will issue Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) rebate checks to small group employers by September 30, 2019. Rebate notifications will also be sent to employees of impacted groups. LISI has a l...

Stanford Health Care and Anthem Blue Cross Renew Their Contract

Stanford Health Care is again participating in the Anthem Blue Cross network. The contract between Anthem Blue Cross and Stanford had been terminated effective September 1, 2019. However, both parties...

Anthem Blue Cross Releases Q1 Updates

You can now quote Anthem Blue Cross Q1 2020 plans. LISI reports a minimal statewide quarterly increase across all plans with HMOs at 0.3%, PPOs at 0.4%, and PPO HSAs at 0.8%. Anthem will only terminat...

Upcoming Compliance Deadlines

It’s that time of year again! Some important compliance deadlines are coming up this fall and winter: Medicare Part D Notices, October 14: Employers offering prescription drug coverage must issue...

Anthem Blue Cross Dual PPO Now Available in Regions 1 and 9

You can now pair the Anthem Blue Cross Full PPO and Select PPO within the same group offering for new groups with effective dates of October 1, 2019 to January 15, 2019. The employer’s principal busin...

UnitedHealthcare Webinar: 2020 Product Update

Join this informative broker webinar to see how UnitedHealthcare is uniting care and coverage in California. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn about their 2020 small business product portfolio, inc...

UnitedHealthcare Relaxes Participation Guidelines for Dental

UnitedHealthcare will now allow groups down to 5 eligible to enroll in the following: Calendar Year Max $2000+ Implants Ortho Previously, these benefits were only available to groups wi...

UnitedHealthcare Reminds Brokers of the SEP

UnitedHealthcare is reminding brokers that the ACA requires carriers to offer a one month special open enrollment period (SEP) from November 15 to December 15. The SEP is for groups that don’t have to...

Small Business Medical Incentive Program Accelerator

Blue Shield of California is making it easier for you to earn more when you sell Blue Shield of California Small Business medical products. No complicated tiers or calculations required. ...

UnitedHealthcare Medical Loss Ratio Rebates

Medical Loss Ratio must be calculated and reported for all fully insured individual and group business, with customers aggregated by group size, legal entity and state. UnitedHealthcare has systems an...

Clarification on Blue Shield of California’s Trio Expansion

Blue Shield of California’s Trio network has expanded in Riverside, San Bernardino, and Tulare counties, available Q4 2019. The 2019 Trio plans in the new service areas are available off-exchange only...

Sexual Harassment Training Deadline Extended One Year

On August 30, 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill extending the deadline for California employers to provide initial sexual harassment training from January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2021. The train...

Anthem Blue Cross Renews Hospital Agreements

Anthem Blue Cross has renewed commercial agreements with the following hospitals: Kern Medical Center located in the City of Bakersfield, effective September 15, 2019 Palomar Health, which in...