Description: More than one million Americans have died in the past decade from drug overdoses, alcohol and suicide. Drug-related deaths have tripled since 2000, alcohol-induced deaths have reached a 35-year high, and suicides increased by 28 percent from 2000 to 2015. With one-fifth of Americans affected by mental illness each year, these epidemics constitute a public health crisis that is projected to worsen without proper interventions. As insurers, employers and state agencies start to seriously address these issues, actuaries well-versed in mental healthcare issues, interventions, and quality assessment will be invaluable partners in efforts to improve behavioral healthcare treatment throughout the country. The presenters have completed significant research concerning the opioid epidemic, suicide rates and the quality of behavioral healthcare treatment in the U.S. and will share patterns and statistics regarding the state of behavioral healthcare in the country, discuss the financial and population health benefits that can be achieved through effective medical-behavioral healthcare integration, and the role that actuaries can play in supporting these efforts. Attendees will walk away understanding the extent of the drug, alcohol, and suicide epidemics in the U.S and the need for a National Resilience Strategy to address them.

Description: Employer and payers need to actively seek change in the system of mental health care deliveryoperational, clinical, and financial change. From Financing Chronic Care Monograph, M-HB05-1.

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: Full version of Health Section News, Issue No. 55, May 2007.

Description: This article examines the costs of mental health parity, presents the primary drivers of cost increases from legislation and shows evidence the initial cost projections were too high. From Health Section News, March 2005, Issue No. 49.

Description: This session from the 1992 Valuation Actuary Symposium explores claim reserves, including reserves for stop-loss products, claims reserves for group disability insurance products LTD, and claim reserves for shorter term claim payouts primarily major medical type products and Medicare supplement type products. It also covers Actuarial Standard of Practice 5 dealing with incurred health claim liabilitities.

Description: Full version of Health Section News, Issue No. 49, March 2005.

Description: This session takes a fresh look at the issues related to acute care focus and the challenges of providing coordinated care for chronic conditions in the United States. Topics include mental-health disorders, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 31, No. 2, Session 89

Description: The medical and behavioral health care provider communities have long debated whether high-quality behavioral health care reduces medical costs. This presentation from Session 85PD of the SOA 1996 Colorado Springs Meeting reviews past studies relating to medical cost offsets and explores the potential magnitude of such design and delivery of medical and behavioral health care programs to encourage potential health care cost savings and to increase wellness. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 22, No. 2.

Description: This is the abstract for the paper, The Need for Coordinated Care for Depression, and the Need for Creative Innovation by Stephen P. Melek, FSA.