Description: An economic analysis of bariatric surgery and health care costs supports the case for health plans to cover these procedures.

Description: Panelists discuss employers' perspective of defining strategies to identify best-in-market opportunities. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 24, No. 1.

Description: Article from The Actuary regarding the medical malpractice crisis. could a macro system be the answer to a reduction in medical malpractice costs? Information in this article points in that direction.

Description: An overview of the issues behind reimbursing providers on a bundled or packaged basis. The article presents the potential advantages offered by the proponents as well as the criticisms and obstacles to implementing this type of payment system.

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: This article discusses the idea of controlling health care costs through wellness. The author states that it has already been clearly demonstrated that actuaries practicing wellness produce more accurate valuations and earnings forecasts, are more skillful in product pricing and design, and are more popular with government examiners, accountants and even agents.

Description: How predictive analytics techniques can be used in the health practice.

Description: A review of the 2009 Health Spring Meeting, which included speakers & sessions on the future of the SOA, U.S. health care reform, claims data issues & improvements, predictive modeling, underwriting principles, employer stoploss, cost trends, LTD & disability, and mental health parity regulations.

Description: Introduction to population health, a collaborative discipline that seeks to leverage all the determinants of health personal behaviors, medical care and the public health infrastructure, as well as the social and economic context at the community and national level to maximize the health of populations.

Description: In the course of consulting engagements, actuaries almost always find they need one or more of the following resources: -Healthcare data, which may be at the individual patient level or on a particular population. -Health services research studies which describe, summarize, try to alter, or predict patients’ use of health resources. -Health policy information, which describe public or private actions which affect the access, cost and quality of medical care. This document describes the ever-changing resources and specifies where they may be obtained.