Jane Antonio

Biography for Jane Antonio

Jane Antonio is the editor of FierceHealthPayer: AntiFraud. She joined the FierceHealthPayer team after a 27-year career in health insurance, where her most recent role was director of corporate compliance and ethics. Jane worked closely with Special Investigations Units designing and delivering employee anti-fraud training. This followed years of investigating Medicare fraud, waste and abuse cases and recovering program overpayments. Jane holds an M.A. in substance abuse counseling from Rhode Island College and a B.A. in English from Stonehill College in Easton, Mass. She enjoys reading and long outdoor walks. Contact Jane at [email protected]
 

Articles by Jane Antonio

Industry moves against transgender discrimination

Aetna will provide benefits for gender reassignment surgery next year for federal employees in its customer base, The Washington Post reported. While health insurance benefits have not historically been available for this surgery, Aetna's announcement is one of several signs that what's been considered transgender discrimination in health insurance is making a gradual exit.

Insurance issues debated in midterm elections

Medicaid and Medicare continue to be campaign issues in the eleventh hour of the midterm legislative and gubernatorial campaigns, and recent headlines suggest payers eyeing Medicaid profits hope for Democratic victories. 

Study: Individual market customers pay higher premiums after ACA

Individual market enrollees are paying higher monthly premiums on average after Affordable Care Act implementation, according to results of a new HealthPocket study.

Some ACA plan enrollees struggle to find docs

Some people who bought Affordable Care Act plans might have a hard time finding doctors willing to accept them as patients. Doctors cite payment concerns, already-full practices or administrative hassles related to exchange products as reasons for turning new patients away.

An Affordable Care Act report card

With a year of implementation experience under its belt, the Affordable Care Act has delivered on some of its promises but fallen short elsewhere, according to an analysis by The New York Times. Excerpts from that analysis highlight ACA effects on health insurance affordability, performance of the exchanges and the healthcare industry.

Survey: Docs report rocky relationship with payers

Doctors facing a changing practice environment are unhappy with most large health payers, according to the 2014 Medscape insurer ratings report.

Rand: Subsidies and individual mandate serve as 'carrot and stick' for ACA success

Removing tax credits that help low- and moderate-income people buy health insurance on exchanges would increase premiums by nearly 45 percent, according to results of a Rand Corp. study. More than 11 million Americans would lose coverage. 

Stanford professor predicts doom for health insurers

Competition among health systems and pressure to cut costs will transform--if not doom--health insurance companies in their current form, Stanford University Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer argues in a Fortune article. 

Studies reveal rise and fall of ER use

The idea that Medicaid expansion will wreak havoc with state budgets due to increased hospital use by the previously-uninsured was challenged by results of a recent study by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. While rates of hospital and emergency room use rose soon after people enrolled in low-cost, government health plans, utilization of these services dropped off within a year, researchers found.

Feds prepare for ACA open enrollment with an improved Healthcare.gov

As open enrollment nears for plans offered pursuant to the Affordable Care Act, HealthCare.gov is making headlines again with coverage about how the new version of the federal enrollment website is better than the old. Despite the revamp, though, "things are still complicated," according to the Associated Press.