Healthcare Happy Hour

NAHU allies in Congress introduced bills that would address the three-day stay requirement for Medicare beneficiaries who are considered to be under observation status while being hospitalized. On this week’s episode of the Healthcare Happy Hour, Vice President of Congressional Affairs and resident Medicare policy expert John Greene discusses these new bills and how they seek to resolve this issue.

On last week’s episode of the Healthcare Happy Hour, we discussed NAHU’s letter to federal agencies regarding concerns about the implementation of the surprise billing provisions of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021. This week, Marcy M. Buckner is back to talk about another comment letter we submitted last week – this one concerning the hot-button issue of broker compensation disclosure. We review the law that passed at the end of 2020 that made these disclosure requirements, what NAHU is doing to ensure it is implemented fairly, and more.

Last month, NAHU began publishing the State Update, a member-exclusive newsletter highlighting all the relevant political and regulatory health insurance news at the state level. On this week’s episode of the Healthcare Happy Hour, we are joined by Husni Abdelaziz, NAHU’s director of government affairs. Husni monitors legislative and regulatory issues in 30 states, and works closely with NAHU’s Northeast, Midwest and Southwest chapters and their lobbyists. We discuss why NAHU is publishing the State Update and all of the pertinent legislative issues we are seeing at the state level throughout the country.

In January, President Biden established a new special enrollment period via executive order from February 15 to April 15, since extended to August 15. On this week’s episode of the Healthcare Happy Hour, we are highlighting the milestone of 1 million consumers covered on the ACA exchange since the beginning of the SEP. In addition, we preview the next episode of the President’s Perspective podcast, hosted by NAHU President Dane Rianhard and Membership Council Chair David C. Smith. The forthcoming episode will feature Jerald Tillman, founder of the National African-American Insurance Association. Dane, David and Jerald have a fantastic conversation about how Mr. Tillman got his start in the industry, why he feels associations are vital to the industry, why he established an association for black insurance professionals, and the work that they have done. Make sure to listen to the full episode on Tuesday May, 18.