Description: Limitations in actual practice as a health care actuary due to lack of standards, lack of internal data, too much external data, lack of control. Issue No. 38.

Description: This article is an overview of preliminary research on HSAs and Account-Based Health Plans. The summary reviews enrollment, health status, premiums and account information. From Health Watch Newsletter, September 2006, Issue No. 53.

Description: The editor of HealthWatch addresses the readership on actuarial best practices and purpose of ASOPs. Issue No 60

Description: Identifying and submitting all appropriate ICD-9 diagnosis codes to CMS will result in a higher risk score for the member and increased payments to Medicare Advantage plans. Milliman's HCC prevalence study illustrates the significant variations in HCC prevalence rates by age/gender, geography, and population type and will assist plans in benchmarking the effectiveness of their own diagnosis code capture efforts.

Description: This article provides an overview of behavioral economic theory as it relates to health and welfare insurance plans and provides summaries of two sample applications of the theories: enrollment in health insurance exchanges created by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and product design considerations in light of vast health illiteracy.

Description: There are early indications of a six year cycle in ACA markets reminiscent of the traditional underwriting cycle.

Description: Section Chair discusses Council plans for the year.

Description: This zip file contains the following files in support of the 1996 Group Long-Term Disability Experience Study: 1. CGDT.TXT, 2. RUNTAB95.TXT, 3. TABLE95.EXE, and 4. TABLE95.TXT.

Description: Using population data, mortality rates are projected for people who will attain age 80 in the future. Finally, the distribution of the maximum age at death that will be attained by a Canadian is investigated.

Description: This paper presents an analysis of mortality in a sample of 441adults aged 55 to 85 at baseline, who were observed for eight years. The study was initiated for the purpose of analyzing age-related changes in a variety of physical variables and their impact on functional independence. The modeling approach is discussed and the factors which were most significantly related to mortality.