In one of the largest healthcare deals to date, Kaiser Permanente is acquiring Pennsylvania-based Geisinger Health and investing $5 billion to fold it into a new nonprofit subsidiary called Risant Health, which is set to purchase additional medical groups in coming years.
While regulators still must review this initial acquisition, the marriage of Kaiser and Geisinger would create a behemoth with more than $100 billion in annual revenue — 95% of it coming from the Kaiser side of the equation.
Like Kaiser, Geisinger both owns hospitals — 10 of them — and operates its own health insurance program. Unlike California-based…
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“High performance network” health care insurance plans to leave patients with unexpected medical debt
A Tennessee family faced a potentially catastrophic situation when Joe Smith — a husband and father of four — was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm. Smith, of Chattanooga, had health insurance through his job with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, but the insurance company refused to pay for the surgery necessary to prevent a life-threatening rupture.
“We knew that he kind of had this ticking time bomb in his head,” Stacie Smith, Joe’s wife, said.
The insurer claimed that the neurosurgeon that Smith’s family had chosen was out of the network, and the plan had no coverage for out-of-network…