A number of recent reports point to drug prices as the leading factor for choosing insurance coverage, particularly Medicare Advantage Plan. Payers must prioritize decision factors for signing and retaining members, meaning payer involvement in pricing and rebates directly influence member growth.
Accountable care organizations (ACOs) have been the most popular vehicle for value-based payment model adoption to date, with over 923 ACOs covering approximately 32.4 million lives across the country. Recognizing the importance of successful ACO implementation, the Health Care Transformation Task Force (HCTTF) released a comprehensive analysis of high-performing ACOs and ACO success factors.
America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) released a report which details health plan effects by state, including the District of Columbia. “More people than ever have health care coverage today. But, for plans, their commitments are about so much more.” says Dr. Richard Bankowitz, Chief Medical Officer for AHIP.
Change Healthcare (CH) announced payer insights revealed in The Engagement Gap: Healthcare Consumer Engagement in 2017, a new national study of 89 payers, 251 providers, and 771 consumers. CH asked payers about the factors influencing their consumer-centric initiatives, and how these strategies are altering their organizations. Health plans surveyed were generally aligned in pointing to value-based care as the primary factor driving their focus on consumer-centricity, with 74% reporting it as the leading factor.
NCQA’s Health Insurance Plan Ratings 2017–2018 compare the quality and services of more than 1,000 health plans in the United States and provide consumers with a practical and meaningful guide to understanding their health care options and choosing the best health plans for themselves and their families. National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) is releasing its 2017 Health Insurance Plan Ratings. These ratings provide consumers with a more accurate picture of how health insurance plans perform in the key quality areas of consumer satisfaction, prevention and treatment.
The Association for Community Affiliated Plans (ACAP) issued a report which examines possible alternatives to the individual mandate for health insurance coverage brought about by the Affordable Care Act and evaluates their cost and efficacy. It suggests that if the individual mandate were to be repealed, a mixture of alternative mechanisms would be required to serve a similar role in maintaining a healthy risk pool in the individual stable health insurance market.
Autism care costs balance in the middle of many competing issues and agendas leaving payers, providers, and consumers trying to sort out the facts from fictions. The size of the funding pie “…over the next 10 years [is] about a half a million youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) will enter adulthood. The majority of the costs in the U.S. health care systems for ASD are directed at the adult population: $175 to $196 billion for adults compared to $61 to $66 billion for children.” writes Monica Oss, CEO, Open Minds.
Payers and providers need efficient administrative services for profitability. With all the capital and human resources invested in electronic health records and data exchange security, why are documentation errors still one of the highest cause of adverse determinations? The number of claims slowed by lack of/incomplete/poor EHR documentation became crystal clear in recent reports.
The era of volatile swings and double-digit growth in employer medical costs appears to be ending. With medical cost trend hovering in the single digits for several years, the industry has been waiting for the inflection point when spending will take off. But that spike appears unlikely to happen. The New Health Economy is settling into a “new normal,” typically characterized by more attenuated fluctuations and a single-digit trend.For four years, medical cost trend has hung between 6 and 7 percent, seeming to settle into a “new normal.” PwC’s Health Research Institute (HRI) anticipates a 6.5 percent growth rate for calendar year 2018, half a percentage point higher than in 2017.
Payers and providers connect, both formally and informally, through the reimbursement process. In past times, the relationships were stormy. Today, market forces push the need for better understanding of margin defense and revenue cycle performance. Streamlining internal operations addresses many of these new market demands. For example, patients demand higher value for care pushing more review of claims which push greater need for consistent documentation.