Description: It goes without saying that the analysis of data is a key aspect of actuarial practice, but do traditional actuarial approaches allow us to see the whole picture? Effective data analysis is also key to the identification of health disparities and measuring progress on health equity. Actuaries and others analyzing data for health equity purposes find themselves looking at data differently.

Description: This session includes a new idea based on dynamic treatment regime work (OWL) and integrating cost into this work. This will enable identifying the best treatment for a patient based on both outcomes and cost. This is novel for actuaries because in previous analysis we have used cost only in the after-analysis, whereas here we use it in the actual analysis and treatment identification. Moreover, this analysis provides a way to consider multiple treatments for a patient (including the no treatment option) and choosing among those multiple treatments, for both outcomes and cost. This session will share the background theory and set up a case study. The case study will parallel what is in the analysis in the book by Ian Duncan 'Predicting Hospital Readmission with Case Management Recommendation.' This analysis will then go further to compare a situation where there are multiple potential case managers. Also, this will potentially explore care pathways and choosing the best care pathway for a patient based on health outcomes and cost combined.

Description: The instructors in this boot camp session will highlight the SOA's work on an updated Medicaid underwriting margin model. This research project includes an excel model, a set of instructions and a paper describing the key components of underwriting margin, including cost of capital and risk margin.

Description: Tree models have been found to provide a good fit to group long term disability recovery and mortality rates. This research paper provides an overview of tree models, and details how they have been used for developing these rates.