Description: A rethinking of current provider reimbursement, focusing on incentives instead of simply cutting fees. The recommended 2-pronged approach would feature integrated provider organizations as well as evidence-based decision making organized around episodes of care.

Description: Read the February 2018 issue of Health Watch, published by the Health Section. Practical information for actuaries, articles impact sections, section activities.

Description: Healthcare risk adjustment methodologies have become increasingly complex, largely due to the belief that complexity enhances accuracy. However, a disconnect exists between how healthcare risk is assessed and how payments are adjusted. This article explores the stark difference between measuring the accuracy of a risk assessment model at a member level, and that of a risk adjustment mechanism at the health plan level. I show that a highly simplified approach that does not use diagnosis codes can have similar accuracy on risk adjusted payments to models that do. These findings suggest that accuracy is not a barrier to developing simpler risk adjustment methodologies, which can improve payment accuracy and reduce the financial incentive for coding diagnoses.

Description: The ACA’s Medical Loss Ratio Provisions

Description: Introduction to the ACA @ 5 publication

Description: Risk adjustment is used to adjust the revenue stream to health insurers that sell ACA eligible plans and Medicare Advantage plans. This article compares and contrasts these risk adjustment programs.

Description: This article will consider several issues arising from ACO budgeting and pricing of stoploss coverage, including: 1) attribution of members; 2) claim carve outs; 3) ambiguous stoploss terms; 4) providers gaming the system and 5) credibility of data.

Description: The healthcare industry is in the middle of extraordinary times. This article outlines the many forces driving this transformation, as well as various obstacles. This has both personal and business implications to health actuaries.

Description: Highlights of health related articles from the North American Actuarial Journal. A paper on health care reform and efficiency is published in a recent issue of the NAAJ.

Description: CLASS Act and ACA