Description: This article discusses a study of the impact of the drug infliximab on Crohn's disease patients. This study had been approved in response to an SOA request for proposals for research on the health cost and utilization effects of a specific prescription drug.

Description: Panelists discuss major reforms of health care financing and delivery systems around the world. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 24, No. 2.

Description: The article described recent major advances in measurement of health programs and providers in the public and private sector.

Description: This session covers current topics of interest to self-funded health benefit programs. Topics include carve-out of pharmacy, participation in employer coalitions for pooling of risk and negotiating favorable terms with providers and administrators, stop loss insurance market developments and transparency. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Volume 30, No. 1, Session 51

Description: Discusses management principles for the successful application of the underwriting processes of selecting and classifying risks and the actuarial pricing process of establishing adequate and equitable premiums for the risks to be underwritten within group medical business. Has some nice representative data for what a book of business might look like by case size.

Description: This paper examines the impact at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care of the introduction of specialty networks, shift to mail-order prescriptions, shifts to generic prescriptions, and product mix shifts to overall pharmacy trend. From Prescription Drugs Monograph, M-HB04-1.