Description: Feature article discussing the high cost of prescription medicines in Canada.

Description: Presenter discusses issues related to alternative care, as well as SOA activity in regard to alternative care. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 24, No. 1.

Description: Open meeting of the Society's Health Benefit Systems Practice Advancement Committee and Health Section Council, as well as the American Academy of Actuaries' Health Practice Council. The three committees review ongoing projects in the Health Practice area. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 24, No. 2.

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: Presenter examines federal and state efforts at parity in the area of mental health insurance. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 24, No. 2.

Description: New research shows that we often make sub-optimal choices, when selecting a health insurance plan, that lead to unnecessary out-of-pocket expenditu

Description: This article from major US payers describes palliative care as a scaleable means of improving quality and reducing costs during serious and complex illness.

Description: This session discussion is about two proposals for health-care reform will be presented, one from the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Association and one from the Council for Affordable Health Care. These dramatically different proposals will be compared and open for critique. From Record of Society of Actuaries Vol. 18, No. 4A.

Description: Health care is a complex market with a wide variety of stakeholders. These stakeholders have diverse business needs, requiring complicated data-driven decisions. The analytics and research supporting these decisions are often dependent on the availability of real-world data (RWD), which includes a wide variety of data capture technology and data reflecting treatment, clinical outcomes, and costs of health care in real treatment settings (e.g.,, outside of controlled clinical trials). The goal of this panel discussion is to explore how existing and emerging sources of RWD can enhance benefit design, improve risk assessment, influence treatment decisions, and advance the measurement of clinical, humanistic, and financial outcomes. The diverse speaker panel includes actuarial and non-actuarial perspectives, representing the pharmaceutical industry, a health-care services business, and academia. The panel will describe the decision-making that drives their individual needs to use RWD, identify current and developing RWD sources, provide examples of analyses using RWD, and discuss how emerging RWD may influence actuarial analytics and potentiate the development of new interdisciplinary methods and value drivers.

Description: This paper describes in detail each of five options available to small Texas employers wanting to purchase insurance for their employees. It then describes the advantages and disadvantages to the various players: carriers, employers, employees, and agents. It points out that each player will act in its own interest.