Description: Realizing the impact of medical errors on the U.S. health care system, the Health Section commissioned a research project to measure the annual frequency of medical errors and their total measurable direct and indirect cost to the economy.

Description: This article provides a basic overview of how Health Section research is initiated and conducted including the roles different parties play. Issue No 60

Description: Healthcare costs have been rising faster than general inflation for many years. Early models that predicted this past pattern projected healthcare expenditure growth that continued to outpace total expenditure growth leading to the fallacious position that the whole of the US economy would ultimately be consumed by healthcare. The Society of Actuaries' Pension Section and Health Section Research teams commissioned Professor Thomas E. Getzen of Temple University to construct a resource model for the projection of long term healthcare cost trends that includes capacity constraints to ensure the long-term projection is rational. The motivation for creation of the model was driven by its potential usage as a resource for the estimation of reportable liabilities for retiree healthcare benefits as specified under FAS 106 and GASB 45 accounting statements. This is a zip file containing the following: 1. A background paper on the creation of the health trend model, 2. The model, programmed in Microsoft Excel [xls format], that projects per-person expenditures and growth rates through 2099 using baseline assumptions, but also permits the flexibility for user–inputted alternative assumptions, and 3. Technical documentation providing transparency and support for the ultimate results.

Description: SOA’s recently completed research project related to long term projects of health care cost trends for use in post retirement medical valuations.

Description: Recognizing an opportunity to help serve its members in this age of increased financial oversight, the Health Section of the Society of Actuaries commissioned a series of guides on the use of statistical techniques specifically geared for the work of health actuaries. In this first guide in the series, the topic is an estimate well-known to health actuaries- the calculation of incurred but not reported [IBNR] health claims reserves. In particular, this guide focuses on the development of confidence intervals around IBNR estimates.

Description: This article provides an introduction to MEPS and where to find data files. From Health Watch, September 2006, Issue No. 53.