Description: The Society of Actuaries (SOA) published its first COVID-19 research brief on March 10, 2020, followed by regular updates and expansions through June 12, 2020. The comprehensive report included a section of statistics that highlight the pandemic’s impact on economies in the U.S. and Canada. This report shows updates through July 29, 2020, to selected graphs from the Economic and Asset Impact section of the comprehensive report.

Description: Learn more about the reasons for provider consolidations and shortages as well as their impact on health care morbidity.

Description: Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) include the social and physical conditions in which people are born, live and work on a daily basis. This project advances a growing body of literature to inform the ongoing optimization of population health and payment models.

Description: Using data from the Health & Retirement Study [HRS], a two-part medical claim prediction model is estimated for a cohort of survey respondents approaching Medicare-eligibility age. A High Deductible Health Plan [HDHP] with a companion Health Savings Account [HSA] is applied to simulated claims streams to model the build-up of HSA assets over the near-retirement years. Results show that the HSA is a grossly inadequate savings vehicle to provide for retiree medical care expenses at age 65. Moreover, HSA adequacy worsens exponentially with diminishing health status. Based on this simulation, it is apparent that Baby Boomers cannot adequately provide for the costs of medical care in retirement using HSAs exclusively.

Description: Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) affects many lives and has a large impact on health systems around the world. To better understand and predict costs for insurance plan members with CKD in the United States, we built a new model of their individual costs. Our model is the first to explicitly model both the CKD stage transition process and the distribution of costs given those stages.

Description: The SOA is pleased to make available a research report providing insight and considerations for the actuarial profession in assessing the potential risk and opportunities of MACRA to both provider and payer organizations.

Description: How does where you live impact your health? The following research considers this question through the lens of social determinants of health (SDOH), which are factors relating to where you live or work that may impact your health. In the United States, there are geographical differences in SDOH which contribute to wide disparities in health status and outcomes. In particular, individuals who are negatively affected by SDOH may have an increased burden of disease, leading to a relatively high total cost of care and worse quality of life.

Description: In this paper, the authors created a mathematical model which reflects typical relativities by age, duration of disablement, and deferment period for disability risk. The paper is followed by discussions submitted by various reviewers.

Description: Research report measuring the annual frequency of medical errors in the United States and the total measurable cost to the United States economy of these errors.

Description: How does where you live impact your health? The following research considers this question through the lens of social determinants of health (SDOH), which are factors relating to where you live or work that may impact your health. In the United States, there are geographical differences in SDOH which contribute to wide disparities in health status and outcomes. In particular, individuals who are negatively affected by SDOH may have an increased burden of disease, leading to a relatively high total cost of care and worse quality of life.