Description: In Medicaid rate development, actuaries have not historically shared models that developed the margin (i.e., underwriting gain) assumption. This is unfortunate, given the margin assumption is one of the most critical components of the rate development in ensuring financial solvency of the Medicaid managed care organizations (MCOs). In this session, we will discuss the primary components of the this assumption and will share working models that help actuaries quantify these components—including the cost of capital and risk (or contingency) margin. We expect a lively discussion as we “open the black box” and discuss these actuarial assumptions in the public for the first time.

Description: The always popular Medicaid Hot Topics session is back with discussions from an expert panel on the most riveting Medicaid topics of the year. These could include the following: • Medicaid Fiscal Accountability Proposed Regulations• Tennessee's Block Grant Proposal• ACA court battles: What are the potential impacts on Medicaid? • Pass-through payments are converting to directed payments: What is changing?• And more current topics of interest to Medicaid actuariesMedicaid is dynamic and it is difficult to stay current on all of the changes. This session provides insightful discussion into the major changes that impact actuaries and their companies or state clients.

Description: Summary of Medicaid encounter data, including how it is collected by health plans, transferred to state databases, used by states, and ultimately sent to CMS. The status of the CMS T-MSIS project is discussed, as well as the future of Medicaid encounter data as a source of information for many stakeholders.