Description: Working in a silo can mean a greater risk of accidental injury or death, but it can also imperil your actuarial career.

Description: This article provides summaries of the sessions sponsored by the Nontraditional Marketing Section at the recent SOA meeting in Orlando Florida. Topics included measuring sales success, professionalism and the cost of medical malpractice.

Description: This Society of Actuaries, working with LIMRA, Oliver Wyman and the American Council of Life Insurers, is releasing a series of pulse surveys aimed at obtaining a quick read on how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting insurance companies and reinsurers.

Description: In the past months, as COVID-19 has forced the reduced activity in the U.S. economy there has been some very substantial, but varied effects on the U.S. healthcare system. There is a lot of potential for confusion amongst providers and patients with regards to decisions related to which services ought to be rendered and which ought to be deferred. Two specific agencies – the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and the American College of Surgeons (ACS) have put together some guidance to add more clarity towards what types of services should be provided and what types ought to be deferred. In addition, this paper includes a discussion on what types of services are most likely to be deferred, and which ones will accrue pent-up demand to be released when many of the deferred services become available again.

Description: This discussion at the 1989 Valuation Actuary Symposium focuses on methods and considerations that are currently being used in analyzing various risks of concern to the health valuation actuary. The session looks at concepts and types of risks, considerations and influences affecting the actuary, formulas and methods for evaluating risk, and the present status of the health insurance valuation actuary concept.

Description: The SOA released a report titled Massachusetts Health Insurance Reform, which looks at the impact on insurance markets, pricing and profitability.

Description: This session will include examples of healthcare claims and market data to be used for educational purposes to highlight trends in the insurance industry. It will also highlight opportunities to enforce existing laws around fraud and abuse, and areas for regulators and legislators to focus to address this growing problem. Finally, it will discuss recent law changes and highlight areas requiring additional regulatory intervention. Expect discussions of recent claim issues and laws in the healthcare market as well as emerging issues in healthcare. The presentation will be beneficial to healthcare professionals working for health insurers, healthcare providers, auditors, regulators and healthcare providers and will also cover professionalism related topics for actuaries.

Description: You will be reminded how to spot and avoid statistical biases and fallacies that are common to health care actuarial data and problems. We plan to explain various statistical biases and fallacies and for each show one or two examples of how they might pop up in healthcare data and what strategies can be used to avoid/account for them. Likely topics include simpson's paradox, regression to the mean, base rate fallacy, sampling bias, survivor bias, Berkson's fallacy, and others.

Description: Health care cost trends are a key ingredient that health care actuaries use in their practice. In collaboration with the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI), the Society of Actuaries has put together a data extract for practicing health actuaries to be able to better understand historical trends and cost disruptors.

Description: Society of Actuaries Research Brief Impact of COVID-19, May 1, 2020