Description: Cover article introducing this month's newsletter and discussing the highlights of the contents of the newsletter

Description: This article is based on a third party administrator study and explores the relationships between family structure, spare capacity and health care utilization.

Description: Mental health spending has reached $147 billion in the United States with demand only increasing greatly impacting society as nearly 1 in 5 experience these issues. There are even more indirect costs associated with mental health causing a national crisis surpassing 1 percent of the GDP. These costs coupled with the severe lack of licensed clinicians calls for an innovative solution. Through years of development and completion of a randomized controlled trial, Prevail has built and validated a low-cost, scalable solution. Prevail's clinically proven digital mental health treatment provides increased access to care while reducing overall health costs. Private and public payors should being reimbursing this model and offering it to their members.

Description: Results of an SOA survey regarding the expectation for 2015 accruals for 3Rs and cost sharing reduction payments.

Description: This article discusses future benchmarks of Medicare and Medicare's rising costs and its relativity to the actuarial profession.

Description: This article describes the SOA's Risk Adjustment Research project, in the context of health care reform, and the preliminary data analysis that has been completed by the Research Task Force.

Description: Results of an SOA survey regarding the expectation for 2015 accruals for 3Rs and cost sharing reduction payments

Description: This article summarizes the presentations by the Society of Actuaries and the Academy of Actuaries at the January 2015 National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) Roundtables in Washington DC. SOA presented on the 2014 SOA monograph series "The Link between Retirement Security and Long-Term Care."

Description: Letter by Concerned Actuary Group, printed in the January 2010 issue of In The Public Interest, in response to August 6 Review and Outlook Section editorial titled “Obamacare’s Real Price Tag.”

Description: A proposal to address provider payment issues by gradually moving to accountable care organizations. Capitations would be risk-adjusted, non-capitated costs would be covered by hospitalization fund and stoploss, incentives for quality & effective preventive care would be tied to the amount remaining in the fund, and government involvement would be through incentives rather than mandate.