Description: Answers to questions that have surfaced with regard to recent trends in the use of psychiatric medications, including relative effectiveness compared to prescribing patterns, drivers of prescribing patterns, classification and indications for recently publicized drugs, role of primary care providers, preventive use ofdementia medications, and new developments in the field.

Description: This session discussion is about two proposals for health-care reform will be presented, one from the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Association and one from the Council for Affordable Health Care. These dramatically different proposals will be compared and open for critique. From Record of Society of Actuaries Vol. 18, No. 4A.

Description: Look into history of long-term care insurance industry to understand the forces that shaped current industry's position and to identify new directions.

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: Review of a research project, co-sponsored by the SOA, which examined 83 organizations and over 150 programs that measure the quality and efficiency of hospitals and physicians.

Description: Since health care reform has made accountable care organizations a hot topic, an SOA workgroup is addressing relevant questions, including provider risk under various ACO models, limitations of the Medicare model for motivating change in the health care delivery system, strategic priorities, attribution of members, meaurement, and the roles actuaries can play.

Description: For a long time the primary focus of private LTC insurance companies has been to educate the public about the need for private LTC insurance and to make the product more acceptable to a wider population. To this end there have been numerous changes to the product design to make this product more acceptable to general population. However, one of the things that may have been overlooked in those product design changes is the need for alignment of policyholder and insurance company’s interests, which is to make coverage more affordable and to reduce adverse selection. Incentivizing good behavior from policyholders can not only make LTC insurance policies less expensive but also help policyholders make better health choices, which can help them stay healthy for a longer time. These incentives may also reduce some of the inherent risks in a long term care policy and may help in increasing the sales of private LTC insurance.

Description: This article contains a condensed summary and excerpt from the fourth white paper in the Commercial Health Care: What’s Next? series.

Description: This article is about the most significant issues and trends that may impact long-term care LTC risks, care delivery and protection in the future.