Hocking College administration approve new health insurance plan

Hocking College’s employees will be subjected to a new high-deductible health insurance care program, starting Ist Jan 2016 , which was approved by the Board of Trustees at a special meeting held on Thursday evening.

Trustees Mike Budzik, Keith Taulbee, and Paula Tucker were in attendance, with vice-chairman Andy Stone leading the meeting. Chairman Johnson was reportedly unavailable due to travel .
The college’s current provider, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield presented the college with a 35 percent increase on premiums, according to the college’s president, Betty Young. This sent the college out looking for better deals. As a result, the current provider responded with a 24 percent increase on premiums, retracting its formerly proposed 35 percent increase, she said.

If the college kept the current insurance, given the proposed 24 percent increase, it would result in additional costs of $438.91 for individuals; and $1,305 for families, over the course of a year, which is a “significant increase,” Young said.
Source: Athens Messenger

Almost 90% of health care providers hacked in last two years

Cyber attackers have increasingly turned their attention to health care providers, of which nearly 90-percent were hacked over the course of the last two years. The growing number of cyber attacks against the health care industry is said to cost $6 billion annually, marking a trend where hackers shift focus from financial institutions and retailers to those with medical records. All in all, these attacks are said to have doubled in the United States over the last half decade.

The information comes from Bloomberg, which says that of the nearly 90-percent of US health care providers that were breached over the last two years, half of those hacks (or some variety of data breaches) were of a criminal nature. The average cost of a cyber attack against a hospital over the past half decade is $2.1 million.