March 14th 2024
After years of efforts to reduce low-value care, panelists at the 2024 Value-Based Insurance Design Summit proposed a new strategy: drawing a line in the sand that payers will not be on the hook for these services.
Corporate America Must Address Employee Chronic Conditions to Help Achieve the Triple Aim
July 5th 2019The Triple Aim will be within reach when there is greater stakeholder engagement and systemic ownership. A good start is for more employers to provide more American workers with access to high-quality wellness programs that can impact chronic disease with population health strategies.
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Collective Action Can Make Impossible Things Happen in Healthcare
June 28th 2019Bringing together different stakeholders in healthcare to share the challenges they see and their own understanding of how to fix the problem can help make impossible things happen and bring change to the healthcare system, said Elizabeth Mitchell, president and chief executive officer, Pacific Business Group on Health.
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Health as More Than Illness: Impact of Social Determinants and Trauma
June 26th 2019Treating illnesses is important, but it would be a mistake to think that is the full extent of health. Panelists during the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions’ 2019 Leadership Summits, held June 24-26 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, discussed the impact of social determinants and past trauma on health and how employers can ensure they are addressing these issues to improve health and outcomes.
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Understanding Price Growth in the Market for Targeted Oncology Therapies
The prices of targeted oncology therapies have grown substantially, but revenues have not. This is due in part to large declines in per-drug patient counts.
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Dr David Blumenthal Tells Employers to Get Tough, Get Smart, Get Informed on Healthcare
June 7th 2019If employers want to be able to have an impact on the healthcare system and help create lower cost, more effective markets, they need to get informed, get tough, and get smart, said David Blumenthal, MD, president and chief executive officer, The Commonwealth Fund, during the 2019 Annual Conference of the Greater Philadelphia Business Coalition on Health.
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Heard at the Midwest Business Group on Health: Employers Get Invested in Healthcare
May 23rd 2019At the Midwest Business Group on Health (MBGH)’s 39th annual conference, Cheryl Larson, president and chief executive officer of MBGH, and Denise Giambalvo, vice president of MBGH, discussed a range of topics affecting employers, including trust with employees, popular initiatives, the cost of specialty drugs, and various proposals and policies from the Trump administration, such as getting rid of drug rebates and including drug prices in TV ads.
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Poll Finds Most Workers Can Get Mental Health Care, but a Third Worry About Seeking It
May 21st 2019The poll by the American Psychiatric Association found that young men were especially reluctant to seek mental health care from their employers, even though most workers, especially young ones, said they felt willing to discuss mental health in the workplace.
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The Average American Now Pays Enough OOP to Meet Their Deductible on May 19
May 17th 2019Deductible Relief Day, the day when enrollees will, on average, have spent enough on healthcare to hit the average deductible in an employer plan, will be May 19 this year, far later in the year than a decade ago when it was March 18.
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Prescription Benefits Consultant Sees Opportunities for Employers in Debate Over Rebates
May 13th 2019As pharmaceutical manufacturers and pharmacy benefit managers point fingers over who is responsible for high drug prices, employers have the opportunity to demand change to business as usual, consultant Chris Robbins of Arxcel says.
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Addressing Chronic Conditions to Improve Health of Employees and Decrease Costs
May 10th 2019Programs that address chronic conditions have the potential to improve employee satisfaction, reduce costs, and improve employee health, said speakers at the Midwest Business Group on Health’s 39th Annual Conference, held May 8-9 in Chicago, Illinois.
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Private Plans Pay Hospital Prices 241% Higher Than Medicare, RAND Finds
May 9th 2019Hospital prices of privately insured patients are more than twice the price that Medicare pays, according to a new report from RAND and supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the National Institute for Health Care Reform, the Health Foundation of Greater Indianapolis, and participating employers.
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Building Trust, Engaging Employees, and Improving Healthcare
May 9th 2019Trust is crucial when employers are trying to have successful healthcare programs and engage employees to change behaviors, said panelists at the Midwest Business Group on Health’s 39th Annual Conference, held May 8-9 in Chicago, Illinois.
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Learning From Other Countries and Dispelling Myths of a Single-Payer System
May 9th 2019As the United States debates the feasibility and benefits or harms of a single-payer system, the important thing is to have a fact-based discussion and to ask questions, Jan Berger, MD, JD, chief executive officer of Health Intelligence Partners and medical director of the Midwest Business Group on Health (MBGH), said during a session at MBGH’s 39th Annual Conference, held May 8-9 in Chicago, Illinois.
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Willis Towers Watson Report: Employers Aim to Provide High-Quality Care at Affordable Prices
May 8th 2019According to Willis Towers Watson’s Health Care Access and Delivery Survey, a growing number of employers have implemented new strategies to provide their employees with increased access to high-quality, convenient, and affordable healthcare.
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High Satisfaction With Employer Coverage, but Financial Challenges Persist
May 3rd 2019While most people with employer-sponsored insurance were satisfied with their coverage and used positive words to describe their health plan, people with low incomes, chronic conditions, or high deductibles faced healthcare affordability challenges.
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Numerof Report: Population Health Is Inevitable, but Initiatives Have Stalled
April 10th 2019The fourth annual Numerof Survey Report outlined the evolution of population health management in the United States. The report found that while the population health management has been gaining momentum, initiatives toward adopting risk-based models have stalled.
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Dave Fried Discusses Benefit Design and Rising Healthcare Costs
April 6th 2019Employees have seen their healthcare costs rise about as much as they can, and the employers have also taken on about as much burden as they can, so now they’re looking at things that they can do and strategies that they can take to make sure that they’re providing the right benefits to the right people, says Dave Fried, chief executive officer of Tricore Human Capital Management.
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Strategies for Fighting Consolidation in Community Oncology
April 5th 2019At the Community Oncology Alliance's 2019 Community Oncology Conference in Orlando, Florida, a panel discussed strategies for practices to collaborate and survive the recent wave of consolidation. Targeting employers is one solution.
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Specialty Drugs Remain a Costly Concern for Employers With No Easy Answers
March 9th 2019Costs remain the top concern of healthcare purchasers of pharmacy benefits, but employers are also concerned with ensuring appropriate use of medication and adherence to medication, according to a new report from the Pharmacy Benefit Management Institute (PBMI).
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The Greater Philadelphia Business Coalition on Health (GPBCH) seeks to increase the value of health benefit spending for its employer members by improving workforce and community health, increasing healthcare quality and safety, and reducing health care costs. Here is a summary of GPBCH's activities in 2018.
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5 Ways Employers Are Addressing Healthcare
February 22nd 2019Employers are placing an increased focus on healthcare benefits and integrating or expanding healthcare offerings. With healthcare costs rising, employers are focusing not only on health plans but also on ways to improve employee experience with healthcare.
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NSAIDs Surpass Opioids as Top Drug Class Prescribed in California's Workers Comp System
February 19th 2019Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories (NSAIDs) have passed opioids as the most common drug group prescribed to injured workers in California, while payment data show that both dermatological medications and anticonvulsants now rank ahead of opioids in terms of total reimbursements, according to a report examining trends between 2009 and 2018.
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This Trends From the Field article about awareness and adoption of reference-based pricing in The American Journal of Managed Care® comes as the price of medical services is increasingly seen as a driver of the cost of healthcare, even as overall trends level off or stabilize.
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