Description: Article is about community rating and risk adjustment including possible disadvantages for healthy experience-rated or self-insured groups.

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: Panel discusses the effects of reduced payment levels to many Medicare managed care organizations. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 24, No. 2.

Description: Implications of Consumer-Driven Health Care to consumers, employers and providers Issue No. 37.

Description: The author discusses the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 GINA and its ultimate effect on the long-term care industry in general, and on current and future insureds, specifically.

Description: Feature article discussing pending health care reform and the issue of access to care. From The Actuary Magazine, April/May 2010 Vol 7 Issue 2

Description: Presenter describes many of the desirable characteristics of a health care financing system, and alternative health care financing systems as they are found in other parts of the world. The advantages and disadvantages of each alternative system are also discussed. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 24, No. 2.

Description: Panelists discuss the methods HMOs employ to measure their providers' quality of care, outcomes, compliance with best practice guidelines, and cost control. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 25, No. 2.

Description: Diagnostic coding in dental is in its infancy. This article explores the use of medical diagnostic coding and how it may transform dental care in various ways.

Description: This article contains a condensed summary and excerpt from the fourth white paper in the Commercial Health Care: What’s Next? series.