Description: Fifty-three percent of Americans responding to a survey conducted by the Society of Actuaries (SOA) Research Institute reported that extreme weather events – including hurricanes, tornadoes, heatwaves, wildfires and flooding – have adversely affected their health.

Description: Yi-Ling Lin, FSA, MAAA, FCA, started the SOA’s Predictive Analytics Certificate Program to keep pace with the impact big data and predictive modeling is having on the health care industry

Description: Early in his career, Ehren Nagel, FSA, MAAA, scoured through podcasts and articles about predictive analytics, long suspecting this was a field with potential for him.

Description: As actuaries in health care, we spend most of our time focused on reviewing claims, enrollment and clinical data. That information is captured while patients are in health care facilities. Yet most people spend only a small fraction of their time in these facilities. This article explores what types of data are available to actuaries the provide a more holistic view of the member so that a members physical and emotional needs, the social determinants of health can be taken into consideration along with their clinical needs. Two uses cases are presented so actuaries can see how these types of analyses can be leveraged to improve clinical, operational, and financial performance of risk bearing health entities. Understanding the customer (member) not just the patient enables actuaries to provide new insights and values to our stakeholders across a wide range of business and risk applications.

Description: Through the sponsorship of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Society of Actuaries partnered with Wakely to use their health care data to study the effects of COVID-19 on overall health care claims for individuals with a COVID-19 diagnosis. The conclusion of the study is that individuals with COVID-19 claims had significant increases in health care costs leading up to their months of diagnosis, as well as in the months following their diagnosis. These effects were more pronounced for individuals who were hospitalized due to COVID-19 as well as for individuals with prior co-morbidities. Finally, the overall health care costs of these members plateaued at significantly higher levels than their pre-COVID baselines. In fact, all the main membership cohorts experienced claim levels that were at least 20% higher than their pre-COVID starting points.

Description: On March 6, 2023, The Wall Street Journal hosted its Health Forum, a hybrid all-day event. The virtual meeting featured 11 different events. This white paper focuses on those events. The sessions were informative and fast-paced, with each one providing a quick hit of relevant and cutting-edge information around health care.

Description: CMS provides a significant and growing amount of information that can be leveraged by actuaries. Between the public use and research files CMS makes publicly available, large amounts of information that can be assimilated to help understand the who, what, when, where and how of Medicare. With the CMS allowance of supplemental benefits to address SDOH, adding SDOH data into your data landscape is critical to better understand your members' cost drivers. The presenters will focus on the depth and breadth of data available, summarize any restrictions on the use of the data, and identify areas where access to the new data can provide more meaningful insights.