Description: Cover a variety of topics centered around the unsupervised learning technique called 'clustering'. The presenters will take you through a wide array of topics that range from 'What is Clustering?' to 'How can I use this technique to solve problems I didn't even know existed?' In the health care industry, everyone is looking for an edge in reducing total spend-cluster analysis finds the unambiguous in an ambiguous framework of results.

Description: Hear about the new hope biosimilars bring in helping payers and patients manage the rapidly growing pharmacy spend. The Big Event, encompassing multiple Humira biosimilars, launches in 2023 and could set the tone for how much biosimilars can be expected to contribute to solving our pharmacy spend challenges. What will be the financial impact of the Big Event and this coming wave? What can be done to maximize adoption of biosimilars? What strategies are available to maximize savings for payers and patients?

Description: High inflation rates can affect disability insurance in a variety of ways. Learn about rising price and wage inflation trends and why they are of interest to disability insurers. You will also hear presenters address topics such as recessionary pressures, the eroding value of benefits, wage growth, top-line trends and expense pressures. By attending the session, you will gain insight into how inflation should be considered in pricing, reserving and financial modeling.

Description: The presenters give a history lesson on the origin of CMS Medicare star ratings, including why this demonstration was originally created and how the program has worked over the years. The discussion will cover both the evolution of the underlying measures and the financial impact to Medicare Advantage stakeholders. By attending the session, you will have a stronger understanding of how member experience and outcome-based measures can be factored into the funding within a health care system to better align incentives among various stakeholders.

Description: In this session, you will learn about key cost drivers in pharmacy trends, including but not limited to: New high-cost drugs, including gene therapies, that treat rare and/or expensive conditions such as spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), inherited retinal disease, hemophilia A and B, Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), sickle cell anemia and cerebral adrenoleukodystrophy (CALD) Other cost drivers in the prescription drug category, including the emergence of GLP-1s, digital therapeutics, targeted immunomodulators, accelerated approval drugs and expanded indications The implications of the end of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) on the costs of COVID-19 vaccines, testing and treatment claims Downward influences on pharmacy costs, such as the availability of new generic drugs and biosimilars Emerging trends in pharmacy benefits manager (PBM) contracting, the initial portion of this discussion will be led by a pharmacist and former state pharmacy director.

Description: Review a recently completed research project for a multi-stakeholder data consortium on social determinants of health (SDOH). In this project, claims, external SDOH data, geospatial analysis, and machine learning models were used to examine several questions: How to identify SDOH vulnerabilities? How sensitive are the findings with respect to provider coding pattern variations? How much variability in cost can be explained by SDOH vs. morbidity? What are the key risk drivers revealed by machine learning models? The session will review the methodology and main findings from this project.

Description: Focus on how innovative health care organizations develop their value proposition for their intended buyers. Presenters will share information about their specific solution and the methods used to derive credible savings estimates, ROI, and performance guarantees. Learn about data utilized, the methods deployed, advantages, disadvantages, and buyers' reaction. This session is expected to be technical, highly informative, and interactive with audience members.

Description: The health care sector in general, and physicians in particular, are a large and important part of the market for group and individual insurance products. Explore a variety of subjects related to physicians and disability insurance, including experience trends, purchasing trends, external factors affecting physicians, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Description: Address issues in value-based contract accounting from an actuarial perspective. In Medicare and ACA business, what issues does risk adjustment present to value-based contract accounting? In Medicare, what issues do Part D present in value-based contract accounting and what are possible solutions? What are the issues in the use of provider stop loss in value-based contract accounting? Are there issues in the timeliness of claims in value-based contract accounting? Are we giving providers enough information for them to manage their population? How do we deal with deficit accounts? What are the pros and cons of capitation, gainshare, and full risk in value-based accounting?

Description: There exists profound health and access disparities among people from different demographics and socioeconomic backgrounds. Health equity is now a central policy directive for the U.S. government and CMS. Speakers representing policy, health care delivery and actuarial spaces will help you discover what health equity policy directions may look like, the challenges health care providers are facing and how actuaries can contribute to the effort in bridging the health equity divides.