Ep. 16 - BCBS Mississippi Sues for Defamation (and other payor headlines)

This week on the FLATLINING Podcast, Matthew and Ron discuss recent payor headlines. First, we all know the insurance companies make a lot of money and now that their 2022 Quarter 2 earnings reports are out, we take a look at how it affects providers and patients and what is says about the economy. In this episode we discuss Elevance (formerly Anthem) ($ELV ), UnitedHealthcare ($UNH ), Cigna ($CI ), Centene ($CNC ), and Kaiser Permenante. We excluded Aetna because it is difficult to extrapolate their earnings because it falls under the retail giant CVS Health ($CVS ). Then, Matthew and Ron briefly discuss why MaineHealth would drop BlueCross BlueShield of Maine in favor of Aetna for their hospital employees. Finally, BlueCross BlueShield of Mississippi (BCBS MS) has filed a defamation suit against several hospital executives of the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC). UMMC recently terminated its contract with BCBS MS after they couldn’t reach an agreement for a new contract. Following that termination, UMMC began an advertising and social media campaign against BCBS MS. BCBS MS, in turn, is saying it is false and defamatory. We take a look at how this changes the negotiation game for providers and payors and whether or not BCBS MS can win its lawsuit. If you’re reading this in your email or on a podcast platform other than Substack, we use live stock price data in some of our posts and it may show up incorrectly on this platform. If you see $XX, this denotes a live stock price and it is visible at FLATLINING.net. Let us know what you think in the comments below, email us at flatlining@substack.com, or tweet Matthew or Ron. Subscribe to the FLATLINING Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the iHeartRadio app, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, and Audible. Follow Matthew (@radioHandley) and Ron (@RonHowrigon) on Twitter. Articles mentioned in this week’s program: Big payers ranked by Q2 revenue - Becker’s Payer Issues Cigna’s $1.6B net income in Q2: 6 notes - Becker’s Payer Issues Kaiser posts $1.3B loss in Q2 - Becker’s Hospital Review Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and Hospitals Q2 2022 financials - Kaiser Permanente MaineHealth swaps Anthem for Aetna to administer employee health plan - Becker’s Payer Issues Why BCBS Mississippi is suing 3 hospital execs for defamation - Becker’s Payer Issues ‘Demonstrably false’ | Insurance provider files defamation suit against UMMC - WLBT News BCBSMS Complaint This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.flatlining.net