TGIF

Fedweek has a story that follows up on yesterday's FEHBP significant changes post

CMS has finalized two big Medicare rules for 2019:

• The CY 2019 physician fee schedule and quality payment program rule.  Becker's Hospital Review summarizes the rule here, and Healthcare Dive analyzes the rule here, and
• The CY 2019 Outpatient Prospective Payment System rule.  Healthcare Dive analyzes the rule here. The American Hospital Association plans a lawsuit over the rule's effort to level out the payments between hospital outpatient clinics and other clinics. 

St. Louis Today reports that "Cigna Corp. said on Thursday its $52-billion acquisition of pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts Holding Co was on track to close by the end of the year."  (Express Scripts is headquartered in St. Louis.)

MedPage Today expects that Congress will reauthorize the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute with "a few tweaks."

Health Payer Intelligence reports on a Oliver Wyman survey finding increasing consumer dissatisfaction with high deductible plans combined with health savings accounts. The conclusion of the article is striking:

The [Wyman] team said that HDHPs don’t offer the ability to address key consumer satisfaction concerns. Payers trying to tailor benefits to consumers may need to consider new ways to redesign health plan options and to garner trust with beneficiaries. 

The survey found that consumers have extremely little trust in their insurers, rating payers a zero on a scale of 0 to 100.  Consumers are more likely to place their trust with providers.  Eighty percent of consumers said they believe providers work to assist in consumers’ healthcare goals 

“The key lies in understanding the balance consumers perceive between what they already trust, what they might learn to trust, and the incentives – not just in cost and convenience, but in solving pressing concerns health organizations have not addressed,” the team concluded. 

“The new health services landscape becomes much more attractive if it provides new benefits for consumers. We need to spend much more time figuring out what those benefits need to be.”