Description: Diabetes mellitus type 2 is an excellent model for assessing the setup of medical coverage in the U.S. health care system. It is a chronic disease that has genetic, behavioral and other medical causes, and causes many complications over the long term. From Financing Chronic Care Monograph, M-HB05-1.

Description: This paper discussed providing consumers of medical care with transparent and comparable price and quality information to enable them to make economically optimal decisions.

Description: This session from the 1984 SOA Atlanta Meeting covers cost containment in health care costs, cost sharing and cost containment features, underwriting, the use of deductibles or co-payments, different delivery systems and utilization.

Description: Discussion of current developments affecting flexible-benefit plans, pricing and underwriting considerations in a flexible-benefits environment, managed care options in a flexible plan, employer challenges in managing flexible programs, employer cost target and pitfalls.

Description: Electronic Health Records, or EHRs, are a major worldwide initiative to eliminate paper recordings – including Attending Physician Statements (APSs) – of an individual’s medical history and current treatment.

Description: The Society of Actuaries (SOA) published its first COVID-19 research brief on March 10, 2020, followed by regular updates and expansions through June 12, 2020. The comprehensive report included a section of Key Statistics. This report provides updates to some of the data from the Key Statistics section of the brief and additional related data, organized by geography.

Description: In this era of rising health care costs, numerous efforts have been made to link quality and cost through multiple approaches. This is a report of a study, conducted by MPRO under contract with the SOA, in which they evaluate whether quality pays or not in an inpatient setting by carefully selecting a few hospitals in Southeast Michigan and retrospectively calculating their return on investment [ROI] in quality improvement [QI] activities within their organization.

Description: This study was sponsored by the Society of Actuaries Health Section. This paper explores the relative significance of aging as a determinant of financial cost of health care beyond age 50, with particular attention to the effect for ages 65 and older. The paper presents concepts of aging factors and aging curves, which define relative values between ages for utilization or cost of health care services. General conclusions are drawn from Medicare data that utilization and cost differ by age, but that aging factors vary across services and may be less significant at very old ages. The author then turns to the question of measuring the significance of an aging curve assumption and what accuracy is lost in the simpler alternative of a single value across an age range.

Description: Paper summarizes articles on quality care issues including - measurement & reporting, financing, patient safety, standards & education, and leadership.

Description: This discussion from the 1983 SOA Vancouver Meeting reviews the movement to small group health plans, group insurance underwriting, the plan design of non-traditional benefit programs such as cafeteria plans, HMO's and PPO's and new financial processes. From Record of Society of Actuaries, Vol. 9, No. 3.