Description: Quality Measures - December 2000 In the Office and on the Floor - Similarities Between Refereeing and Consulting by Nickolas J. Ortner, ASA, MAAA from The Stepping Stone Newsletter, April 2001, Issue No. 6.

Description: Discussion of Medicare's Ambulatory Payment Classification APC system as the standard for reimbursement of non-capitated outpatient hospital services with sample calculations. Issue No. 37.

Description: In this paper, Honorable Mention Essay for the Society of Actuaries' Entrepreneurial Actuaries Section 2010 Papers Competition, the author examines the rapidly increasing costs of maintaining the U.S. prison system and the fiscal pressures the federal and state governments are faced with, and proposes a plan for an early prisoner release program “with a rigorous, merit-based approach that can be expected to demonstrate favorable outcomes for the general public and the released prisoner.” This plan involves “an optimized process for evaluating the perils associated with freeing candidates eligible for early release - an individualized assessment and quantification of those risks…” The article goes on to describe the costs, benefits, risks, and critical success factors. The report includes two appendices.

Description: Align carrier, agent, and consumer definition(s) of DTC to establish a collective understanding for the affected parties. Understand why a direct-to-consumer approach may be important for carriers’ and distributors’ growth and development goals, tactics and strategies. Use the agreed-upon baseline and understanding of DTC’s importance to establish and agree upon reasonable expectations for its role in marketing, distribution, and product development and performance. Position carriers and distributors together to align sales, marketing and performance expectations and incentives for all parties to increase the possibility of outperforming in (and outside of) the DTC space; design sales, marketing and distribution systems and approaches to meet consumers where they are at; and expand current sales and cultivate new markets to remain relevant and magnify profiles in an ever-changing industry.

Description: As part of the SOA’s July 22, 2020, COVID-19 Virtual Symposium, Marketing and Distribution (MaD) Section Council members presented “Selling Insurance Six Feet Apart” with insight into emerging sales and marketing processes, challenges, and opportunities for the product spaces noted

Description: This article discusses business risks in the National Football League - “NFL” - and the author describes a model his firm developed to address the risks of a player’s salary exceeding the value of the player, and the risks of the negative impact of off field behavior. The author refers to this as the Negate Failure and Legal, or “N-F-L,” player selection and pricing model, effectively a risk management tool for NFL teams.

Description: Building on our previous newsletter article (“Who Sells and Distributes”), we continue here in our attempt to define and clarify sales and distribution terms that may be confusing or misunderstood. In this article, we focus on seller and distributor compensation, which includes payments to customer-facing sales experts and separate allowances for the entities supporting those experts