Description: Health Watch Newsletter, May 2006, Issue No. 52. This article presents information from a recently completed client-sponsored survey of hospital contracting best practices. Individual health plans were evaluated using a structured survey document. The primary objective of the survey was to identify best practices that the client sponsor could implement to improve its already better-than-average hospital contracting practices

Description: This analysis provides an overview of the functional components of the managed care system. It discusses the market forces underlying the United States’ system for health care financing and delivery and suggests how market forces impact the health care industry. The analysis focuses on societal goals for health care delivery and on managed care’s effectiveness in enabling achievement of those goals. The analysis develops and uses an innovative model developed to summarize the complex interplay among the many stakeholders, or participants, in the health care system. The model provides a framework for analysis of the many relationships among stakeholders. The analysis also highlights current issues in managed care, particularly the barriers that impede collaboration among stakeholders.

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: Panelists discuss the role of the valuation actuary in health insurance. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 24, No. 2.

Description: This article provides an introduction to comparative health policy for developed, developing and third-world countries. From Health Watch News, September 2006, Issue No. 53.

Description: Examines the question of whether health-care costs, or health insurance costs, are in crisis.

Description: Overview of a benefit rush and its effects on companies.

Description: Summary of the 1974 report of the HIAA Prevailing Health Care Charges System which contains data from about 900,000 charges for up to 1,600 different surgical procedures, summarized for 250 geographical areas. From The Actuary Vol. 9, No. 7

Description: Article Health Insurance in The Actuary, June 1979, Volume 13, Number 6