Description: This article summarizes the presentations by the Society of Actuaries and the Academy of Actuaries at the January 2015 National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) Roundtables in Washington DC. SOA presented on the 2014 SOA monograph series "The Link between Retirement Security and Long-Term Care."

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: Updates on the efforts of the Academy’s health practice council. its work groups and task forces, to educate health care policymakers on issues including principles for reform, Medicare, the individual insurance market, and risk factors.

Description: Updates on the efforts of the Academy’s health practice council. its work groups and task forces, to educate and influence health care policymakers on issues including principles for health care reform, Medicare, wellness programs, and solvency.

Description: This article is a brief overview of what the Health Actuarial Research Initiative, HARI, is and what the participants in HARI will be doing. HARI is a project formed by the Society of Actuaries that will develop actuarial research studying changes in health care systems.

Description: Mental health spending has reached $147 billion in the United States with demand only increasing greatly impacting society as nearly 1 in 5 experience these issues. There are even more indirect costs associated with mental health causing a national crisis surpassing 1 percent of the GDP. These costs coupled with the severe lack of licensed clinicians calls for an innovative solution. Through years of development and completion of a randomized controlled trial, Prevail has built and validated a low-cost, scalable solution. Prevail's clinically proven digital mental health treatment provides increased access to care while reducing overall health costs. Private and public payors should being reimbursing this model and offering it to their members.

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 research report examines the potential implications of the risk mitigation programs – risk adjustment, reinsurance, and risk corridors – established under The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Description: Interviews with several actuaries who are subject matter experts in the health field to get their perspectives on implementing the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Description: Developing a formal strategy to guide the SOA’s activities with respect to public policy-related topics is underway. Recent experience shows that non-partisan contributions through the SOA’s research are already adding value to important public policy discussions.