Category Archives: Network Design

Five Medicare Advantage fixes we can all get behind (except the health insurance industry, of course)

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It’s no secret I feel strongly that “Medicare Advantage for All” is not a healthy end goal for universal health care coverage in our country. But I also recognize there are many folks, across the political spectrum, who see the program as one that has some merit. And it’s not going away anytime soon. To say the insurance industry has clout in Washington is an understatement. 

As politicians in both parties increase their scrutiny of Medicare Advantage, and the Biden administration reviews proposed reforms to the program, I think it’s important to highlight common-sense, achievable changes with broad appeal that would address the many problems with MA and begin leveling the playing field with the traditional Medicare program. 

1. Align prior authorization MA standards with traditional Medicare 

Since my mother entered into an MA plan more than a decade ago, I’ve watched how health insurers have applied practices from traditional employer-based plans to MA beneficiaries. For many years, insurers have made doctors submit a proposed course of treatment for a patient to the insurance company for payment pre-approval — widely known as “prior authorization.” 

While most prior authorization requests are approved, and most of those denied are approved if they are appealed, prior authorization accomplishes two things that increase insurers’ margins.

The practice adds a hurdle between diagnosis and treatment and increases the likelihood that a patient or doctor won’t follow through, which decreases the odds that the insurer will ultimately have to pay a claim. In addition, prior authorization increases the length of time insurers can hold on to premium dollars, which they invest to drive higher earnings. (A considerable percentage of insurers’ profits come from the investments they make using the premiums you pay.)

Last year, the Kaiser Family Foundation found the level of prior authorization requests in MA plans increased significantly in recent years, which is partially the result of the share of services subject to prior authorization increasing dramatically. While most requests were ultimately approved (as they were with employer-based insurance plans), the process delayed care and kept dollars in insurers’ coffers longer. 

The outrage generated by older Americans in MA plans waiting for prior authorization approvals has moved the Biden administration to action. 

Beginning in 2024, MA plans may be no more restrictive with prior authorization requirements than traditional Medicare.

That’s a significant change and one for which Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra should be lauded. 

But as large provider groups like the American Hospital Association have pointed out, the federal government must remain vigilant in its enforcement of this rule. As I wrote about recently with the implementation of the No Surprises Act, well-intentioned legislation and implementation rules put in place by regulators can have little real-world impact if insurers are not held accountable. It’s important to note, though, that federal regulatory agencies must be adequately staffed and resourced to be able to police the industry and address insurers’ relentless efforts to find loopholes in federal policy to maximize profits. Congress needs to provide the Department of Health and Human Services with additional funding for enforcement activities, for HHS to require transparency and reporting by insurers on their practices, and for stakeholders, especially providers and patients, to have an avenue to raise concerns with insurers’ practices as they become apparent.

2. Protect seniors from marketing scams 

If it’s fall, it’s football season. And that means it’s time for former NFL quarterback Joe Namath’s annual call to action on the airwaves for MA enrollment. 

As Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky and I wrote about more than a year ago, these innocent-appearing advertisements are misleading at their best and fraudulent at their worst. Thankfully, this is another area the Biden administration has also been watching over the past year. 

CMS now prohibits the use of ads that do not mention a specific plan name or that use the Medicare name and logos in a misleading way, the marketing of benefits in a service area where they are not available, and the use of superlatives (e.g., “best” or “most”) in marketing when not substantiated by data from the current or prior year.

As part of its efforts to enforce the new marketing restrictions, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services for the first time evaluated more than 3,000 MA ads before they ran in advance of 2024 open enrollment. It rejected more than 1,000 for being misleading, confusing, or otherwise non-compliant with the new requirements. These types of reviews will, I hope, continue.

CMS has proposed a fixed payment to brokers of MA plans that, if implemented, would significantly improve the problem of steering seniors to the highest-paying plan — with the highest compensation for the insurance broker. I think we can all agree brokers should be required to direct their clients to the best product, not the one that pays the broker the most. (That has been established practice for financial advisors for many years.) CMS should see this rule through, and send MA brokers profiteering off seniors packing. 

A bonus regulation in this space to consider: banning MA plan brokers from selling the contact information of MA beneficiaries. Ever wonder why grandma and grandpa get so many spam calls targeting their health conditions? This practice has a lot to do with it. And there’s bipartisan support in Congress for banning sales of beneficiary contact information. 

In addition, just as drug companies have to mention the potential side effects of their medications, MA plans should also be required to be forthcoming about their restrictions, including prior authorization requirements, limited networks, and potentially high out-of-pocket costs, in their ads and marketing materials.

3. Be real about supplemental benefits 

Tell me if this one sounds familiar. The federal government introduced flexibility to MA plans to offer seniors benefits beyond what they can receive in traditional Medicare funded primarily through taxpayer dollars.

Those “supplemental” benefits were intended to keep seniors active and healthy. Instead, insurers have manipulated the program to offer benefits seniors are less likely to use, so more of the dollars CMS doles out to pay for those benefits stay with payers. 

Many seniors in MA plans will see options to enroll in wellness plans, access gym memberships, acquire food vouchers, pick out new sneakers, and even help pay for pet care, believe it or not — all included under their MA plan. Those benefits are paid for by a pot of “rebate” dollars that CMS passes through to plans, with the presumed goal of improving health outcomes through innovative uses. 

There is a growing sense, though, that insurers have figured out how to game this system. While some of these offerings seem appealing and are certainly a focus of marketing by insurers, how heavily are they being used? How heavily do insurers communicate to seniors that they have these benefits, once seniors have signed up for them? Are insurers offering things people are actually using? Or are insurers strategically offering benefits that are rarely used?

Those answers are important because MA plans do not have to pay unused rebate dollars back to the federal government. 

CMS in 2024 is requiring insurers to submit detailed data for the first time on how seniors are using these benefits. The agency should lean into this effort and ensure plan compliance with the reporting. And as this year rolls on, CMS should be prepared to make the case to Congress that we expect the data to show that plans are pocketing many of these dollars, and they are not significantly improving health outcomes of older Americans. 

4. Addressing coding intensity  

If you’re a regular reader, you probably know one of my core views on traditional Medicare vs. Medicare Advantage plans. Traditional Medicare has straightforward, transparent payment, while Medicare Advantage presents more avenues for insurers to arbitrarily raise what they charge the government. A good example of this is in higher coding per patient found in MA plans relative to Traditional Medicare. 

An older patient goes in to see their doctor. They are diagnosed, and prescribed a course of treatment. Under Traditional Medicare, that service performed by the doctor is coded and reimbursed. The payment is generally the same no matter what conditions or health history that patient brought into the exam room. Straightforward. 

MA plans, however, pay more when more codes are added to a diagnosis.

Plans have advertised this to doctors, incentivizing the providers to add every possible code to a submission for reimbursement. So, if that same patient described above has diabetes, but they’re being treated for an unrelated flu diagnosis, the doctor is incentivized by MA to add a code for diabetes treatment. MA plans, in turn, get paid more by the government based on their enrollee’s health status, as determined based on the diagnoses associated with that individual.

Extrapolate that out across tens of millions of seniors with MA plans, and it’s clear MA plans are significantly overcharging the federal government because of over-coding. 

One solution I find appealing: similar to fee-for-service, create a new baseline for payments in MA plans to remove the incentive to add more codes to submissions. Proposals I’ve seen would pay providers more than traditional Medicare but without creating the plan-driven incentive for doctors to over-code.  

5. Focusing in on Medicare Advantage network cuts in rural areas 

Rural America is older and unhealthier than the national average. This should be the area where MA plans should experience the highest utilization. 

Instead, we’re seeing that the aggressive practices insurers use to maximize profits force many rural hospitals to cancel their contracts with MA plans. As we wrote about at length in December, MA is becoming a ghost benefit for seniors living in rural communities. The reimbursement rates these plans pay hospitals in rural communities are significantly lower than traditional Medicare. That has further stressed the low margins rural hospitals face. 

As Congressional focus on MA grows, I predict more bipartisan recommendations to come forth that address the growing gap between MA plan payments and what hospitals need to be paid in rural areas.

If MA is not accepted by providers in older, rural America, then truly, what purpose does it serve? 

Transcarent unveils new national health system network

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On Tuesday, San Francisco, CA-based healthcare navigation company Transcarent announced ten health systems that will form the initial network for its new direct contracting offering for self-insured employers. The participating health systems include prominent systems like Advocate Health, Intermountain Healthcare, Baylor Scott & White Health, and Mass General Brigham, among others.

Transcarent plans to supplement these care delivery networks with virtual care offerings and digital wraparound services, supported by its recent acquisition of virtual care provider 98point6’s physician portfolio. Transcarent CEO Glen Tullman, who launched the company after selling Livongo to Teladoc in 2020, says the new network’s direct contracting package will guarantee same-day payments to providers and also include value-based incentives. 

The Gist: Transcarent was founded with the stated goal of lowering healthcare costs for employers, so it’s notable that the company is launching this direct contracting network with a group of big-name systems that aren’t all known for being value-oriented or low-cost. 

But these highly sought-after systems may end up forming an appealing “string of pearls” that attracts large employers and consumers to the product. More employers may be enticed to take a look at Transcarent’s direct contracting model, given employer healthcare costs are projected to rise another 7 percent in 2024, after a similar hike in 2023, and competition for talent has begun to soften

—but the ability of the product to deliver value will depend on the incentives and structure of the offering, about which public details are scarce.

Employers seeking a “source of truth” for coronavirus guidance

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Clinical Testing, Coronavirus, Credibility, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economy Reopening, Employee Benefits, Employee Protections, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Health Insurance Industry, Health Policy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Mortality, Narrow Network, Network Design, Pandemic, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Public Health, Public Safety, Strategy, Supply Chain, Transparency, Trust, Truth • Leave a comment

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What Is Truth? | Psychology Today

As states begin to reopen, employers need guidance to ensure safe, COVID-free operations, and are beginning to call local health systems for advice on how to manage this daunting task. Providing this support is uncharted territory for most systems, and they’re learning on the fly as they bring back shuttered outpatient services and surgery centers themselves. This week we convened leaders from across our Gist Healthcare membership to share ideas on how to assist employers in bringing businesses safely back online—and to discuss whether the pandemic might create broader opportunities for working with the employer community.

It’s no surprise some companies are hoping that providers can step in to test their full workforce, but as several systems shared, “Even if we thought that was the right plan, testing supplies and PPE are still too limited for us to deliver on it now.” Better to support businesses in creating comprehensive screening strategies (with some offering their own app-based solutions), coupled with a testing plan for symptomatic employees.

Health systems have been surprised by the hunger for information on COVID-19 among the business community. Hundreds of companies have registered for informational webinars, hosted by systems through their local chambers of commerce. They’re excited to receive distilled information on local COVID-19 impact and response. As one leader said, the system isn’t really creating new educational content, but rather summarizing and synthesizing CDC, state and local guidance.

Business leaders are looking for “a source of truth” from their local health system amid conflicting guidelines and media reports. Case in point: employers are asking about the need for antibody testing, having been approached by testing vendors and feeling pressure from employees. Guidance from system doctors provides a plain-spoken interpretation on testing utility (great for looking at a population, meaningless right now for an individual), and helps them make smarter decisions and educate their workforce.

Health systems are hopeful that helping employers through the coronavirus crisis will lay the foundation for longer-term partnerships with employers, allowing them to continue to provide benefits through lower cost, coordinated care and network options. 

Timing is critical, and it may be smaller businesses that have the ability to change more quickly. Large companies have mostly locked in their benefits for 2021, whereas many mid-market businesses are looking for alternative options now.

Worksite health, telemedicine, and direct primary care arrangements are all on the table. One system surveyed local brokers and employers and found that 20 percent of mid-market employers are open to narrow-network partnerships. “The number seems low,” they reported, “but it’s up from five percent last year, a huge jump.” For systems seeking direct partnerships with employers, there’s a window of opportunity right now to find those businesses committed to continuing to offer benefits, who are looking for a creative, local alternative—and to get that first Zoom meeting on the calendar.

 

 

 

Assessing Responses to Increased Provider Consolidation in Six Markets: Final Report

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, Antitrust, Centers of Excellence, Certificate of Need, Certificates of Public Advantage (COPAs), Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Health Insurance Industry, Health Policy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Market Consolidation, Market Exclusivity, Mergers & Acquisitions, Monopoly, Monopoly Behavior, Narrow Network, Network Design, Noncompete, Out of Pocket Expenses, State Attorney Generals (AG), Third Party Administrators • Leave a comment

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INTRODUCTION

Few communities in the United States have been exempt from the recent wave of consolidation among health care providers, whether it is hospital-to-hospital mergers and acquisitions (horizontal consolidation) or hospital acquisitions of physician groups and other ambulatory service providers (vertical consolidation). Increased provider concentration has been demonstrated to lead to higher provider reimbursement rates and thus higher premiums for people with private insurance, although outcomes vary, market to market.

To examine the strategies that private insurance companies and employer-purchasers use to constrain health care cost growth and how they are affected by increased provider consolidation, we conducted six market level, qualitative case studies, focusing on mid-sized health care markets in which there had been recent consolidation activity

These are: Detroit, Michigan; Syracuse, New York; Northern Virginia; Indianapolis, Indiana; Asheville, North Carolina; and Colorado Springs, Colorado.

BACKGROUND

Hospital and hospital-physician consolidation has accelerated in recent years, creating dominant local and regional health care systems. In nine out of ten metropolitan areas, the provider market is considered highly concentrated. Although merging hospitals and health systems claim they can achieve greater efficiencies and better care coordination through their consolidation, the economic literature almost universally finds that hospitals that merge charge prices above those of surrounding hospitals. Indeed, hospital mergers have been found to increase the average price of hospital services by 6 to 40 percent.  Another study found that hospital acquisition of physician practices increased outpatient prices by 14 percent. At the same time, increased market concentration is strongly associated with lower quality care. There is also evidence that the prices of independent, non-acquired hospitals also increase in the wake of a rival’s acquisition.

Increases in provider prices have been a key factor driving the growth of commercial health insurance costs over the past decade. Annual family premiums have now surpassed $20,000, and the average annual deductible has increased 100 percent over the last 10 years. While policymakers have focused attention on rising health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs (for employers and employees alike), provider consolidation—and its role as a major health care cost driver—has received less attention in the media and among policymakers.

APPROACH

In a series of six market-level, qualitative case studies, we assessed the impact of recent provider consolidations, the resulting provider concentration, the ability of market participants (and, where relevant, regulators) to respond to those consolidations, and strategies for constraining cost growth while maintaining high-quality care. Our case studies focus on the employer-sponsored group insurance market, though we recognize that providers and insurers are often operating across multiple sources of insurance, including Medicare Advantage, Medicaid managed care, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces.  We do not attempt to quantify the effect of provider consolidation in these markets, such as through provider rate or premium changes.

For each case study, we conducted an environmental scan of local media and published literature about market conditions and structured interviews with insurer, provider, and employer representatives, as well as other experts on the health care market. We also interviewed 10 national experts on provider consolidation and payer-provider network negotiations. Over the six case studies, we conducted 77 interviews with local respondents. Each case study, as well as an interim cross-cutting report, can be found at https://chir georgetown edu/provider-consolidation-case-studies/ .

We focused on mid-sized markets that had experienced recent horizontal or vertical consolidation. We identified these through an environmental scan of local media and research literature and a review of trends in market concentration indices, primarily via the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI). The six study markets were chosen to reflect geographic diversity as well as a range of market dynamics (see Table).

In markets such as Asheville, for instance, hospital mergers and acquisitions over the last decade have left the Mission Health System virtually without competition.

Observers describe other markets, such as Colorado Springs and Detroit, as relatively competitive even with recent provider consolidation. Across all six markets, hospitals purchased or entered into clinical affiliations with physician group practices. In some markets, such as Northern Virginia and Colorado Springs, hospital systems faced competition for physician practices from outside private equity firms and practice management companies.

In four out of our six markets, the Blue Cross Blue Shield affiliate was the dominant insurer in the commercial group market, with well over half the market share. Their dominance extended to all types of employers, including for third-party administrator contracts with self-funded employer plans. In two of our markets, the local health care system or systems were the largest private employers. In the other four, the health systems were among the top three or four employers. The states in our case studies were evenly split in having Certificate of Need laws, the lack of which some stakeholders suggested contributed to significant health system construction and concomitant increases in utilization and, less intuitively, prices (explained further, below).

FINDINGS

1. Hospitals are in various phases of empire-building

Across the six markets, the hospitals’ motivations for consolidation are similar, with stakeholders reporting a pursuit of greater market share and a desire to increase their negotiating leverage with payers to demand higher reimbursement. These observations run counter to the justifications often cited by hospital systems that consolidation is needed to create efficiencies and improve care coordination. Following consolidation, the hospitals and hospital systems in our studied markets have engaged in various phases of empire building.

While approaches varied, providers had similar goals in expanding their empire: to increase their geographic footprint, acquire points of referral (such as free-standing emergency departments and physician practices), or build new facilities in areas with a higher proportion of commercially insured residents. In all study markets except Indianapolis, a larger multi-state health system acquired or merged with a local independent provider to gain new entry or additional market share in a particular region Hospital system expansion was also not limited only to study markets: many hospital systems were expanding their footprint across the state.

In addition to consolidation, hospitals have pursued other strategies to gain greater leverage in negotiations with payers. For example, the Syracuse hospital systems have developed clinical niches, so that they are perceived by local residents as the best facility for certain services, such as orthopedics or cancer care In Indianapolis, each of the four health systems carved out “mini-monopolies” within geographic boundaries that have historically been respected by the other systems. For many years, systems largely did not compete directly, although this de facto arrangement has broken down recently.

2. Providers are exercising their increased market clout

Consolidation appears to be having the providers’ desired effect in our study markets: hospital systems reportedly use their market clout to seek higher reimbursement from payers. For example, a payer representative in Colorado noted that when an independent hospital is acquired by one of the major health systems: “the next thing I know, I see a 100 percent increase [in prices] ”. Similarly, payers in Detroit noted a “toughened stance” from a local hospital system following a recent consolidation.  They, along with payers in other markets, also noted that when independent local hospitals are acquired by large national systems, negotiations shift from the local provider to the central corporate office, where there are fewer long-standing relationships, less understanding of local needs, and often a demand to take all or none of the hospitals in the system.

Even non-dominant hospitals appear to benefit from the consolidation of their rivals. For example, a small hospital in Northern Virginia was able leverage its position as an alternative to the dominant Inova Health System, effectively telling insurers: “If you think it’s healthy to have independent health systems in this market, then give us [higher prices] ”. In other cases, hospitals appear to use their market power to build more market power. For example, Asheville’s Mission hospital reportedly used its dominance to pressure physician groups to join their accountable care organization (ACO).

At the same time, our case studies provide examples of constraints on market power. The local nature of health care delivery sometimes demands that providers “play nice” in the sandbox. In Syracuse, executives of the providers and payers have longstanding personal and professional relationships. “Everyone knows each other and we all go to the same meetings,” said one observer, who believed the tight-knit nature of the community contributed to less-than-hardball tactics in the negotiating room. In Northern Virginia, some thought Inova, based just outside of D C , had been relatively restrained in its demands for increased reimbursement in part to avoid raising red flags with federal regulators.

3. Payers have tools to constrain cost growth, but lack the incentive and ability to deploy them effectively

As third-party administrators for self-insured employer-sponsored group health plans, insurers are typically paid a percentage of the overall cost of the plan. As a result, these insurers have a perverse incentive to keep costs high and growing, limiting their motivation to pursue aggressive strategies to reduce provider prices, a phenomenon one respondent called “middleman economics.” This incentive for payers is compounded by the fact that some of the more obvious strategies to contain costs (cutting or threatening to cut a high-cost hospital from their plan networks, for example) are likely to result in negative publicity and resistance from employers and their employees. The result is a strong incentive for commercial insurers to agree to providers’ demands for price increases each year, which employers and their employees will feel more gradually over time than a provider termination. The result is that employers and employees become the proverbial “frogs in the pot of water.”

Payers identify several cost containment strategies, but all come with downsides. Payers in our study markets do negotiate to limit price increases and are pursuing some cost containment strategies, but none identified a “magic bullet” approach that would moderate price growth while minimizing negative feedback from employers and employees.

Network design

One obvious strategy for insurers in response to a provider’s demand for a price increase would be to decline to contract with that provider and terminate them from their network. However, most payers and purchasers described this as a non-viable “nuclear option.” In addition to concerns about bad publicity, unhappy employer customers, and lost competitive advantage over other payers, quite often the provider at issue is essential to an adequate network, either because it is the sole provider within a reasonable geographic distance or because of its dominance in a particular clinical specialty.

Payers in several markets also noted that, more often than not, employers “don’t have their back” during provider negotiations, taking away their ability to credibly threaten to drop the provider from the network. Many large employers were loath to limit their employees’ choice of providers. Without the ability to credibly cite demand for lower prices from employers, insurers have less leverage in their negotiations with providers.

There are exceptions to this rule, but they were quite rare in the study markets. The only exception we observed was when Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina (BCBSNC) terminated Mission Health System, Asheville’s only hospital system, from its network for two months in 2018. When BCBSNC, the dominant insurer in North Carolina, did so, it reportedly faced little public backlash. Rather, the public largely took BCBSNC’s side in the dispute Mission was forced to rejoin the network without the hoped-for price increases.

Designing “narrow” network product is another option for payers. By offering to drive more patient volume to a limited set of providers, payers can, in theory, extract greater price concessions. But payers across our study markets have found little interest among employer customers in narrow network products. As with the “nuclear option,” employers were typically not willing to restrict their employees’ choice, with several noting that the savings rarely outweigh the perceived limits on employees’ choices.  At the same time, several payers are successfully marketing narrow network products in the individual market, where consumers may be more price sensitive and appear more willing to accept a constraint on their choice of providers in exchange for a lower premium.

Provider tiering and centers of excellence

A few payers in our markets offer plans that tier providers based on cost and quality, so that enrollees who choose lower cost providers will pay lower cost-sharing. However, the strategy is limited to markets in which there is sufficient competition so that lower-cost options are available. Payers and purchasers also noted that they often lacked the necessary data to effectively tier providers, and that patients lacked access to real-time pricing tools to enable them to make cost-effective choices.

In Asheville, a tiering strategy is difficult because the Mission Health System is so dominant. However, at least one large, self-funded employer in Asheville has designated out-of-state “centers of excellence” hospital systems that can offer lower prices and high quality for certain elective procedures. Even after reimbursing enrollees’ travel costs, this employer said, it is still more cost effective than receiving the care at Mission. However, there is a small set of elective procedures that can be performed at these facilities, and the bulk of enrollees’ care must be delivered locally.

Risk-sharing arrangements

Payers in Detroit and Northern Virginia suggested they were pinning at least some cost-containment hopes on risk-sharing arrangements with providers. In this they are following the Medicare program, and several hospital systems in our study markets participate in Medicare risk-sharing programs. However, most payers acknowledged that risk-sharing arrangements they have implemented to date have had only a limited impact. Current arrangements have largely involved only upside risk for providers, with the aim of having the provider take on more downside financial risk at a future date. Payers reported deploying risk-sharing arrangements with physician group practices more than hospitals, likely because they have greater leverage with physicians in most of the studied markets. For example, while hospital executives in Northern Virginia told us they had been presented with possible risk-sharing payment models, they declined to participate due to their lack of “economic incentive.”

Provider-payer partnerships

In some cases, payers have taken a “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” tactic, by entering into partnerships or joint ventures with health systems. For example, in 2012 Aetna entered into a joint venture with Inova in Northern Virginia to create Innovation Health. More recently, the self-insured General Motors plan entered into an exclusive partnership with the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit. While it is too early to say what the impact of the GM-Henry Ford partnership will have, observers in Northern Virginia largely dismissed Innovation Health’s impact on the market, noting that Aetna had obtained no discernible competitive advantage from the venture.

4. Employers’ tools to help control costs are limited

Unable (or unwilling) to push back on high and rising provider prices, employers have historically looked elsewhere to contain costs. Across our six markets, the most widespread strategy among employers to constrain their health plan costs has been to shift them to employees, largely through higher deductibles Increasing deductibles and other enrollee cost-sharing has been an attractive strategy because it can be ratcheted up slowly over time, limiting employee pushback. At the same time, several employer respondents in our study markets observed that this cost-shifting strategy may have been tapped out, noting that many of their employees can no longer afford the deductibles. One also observed that, because of high provider prices, employees often exceed their deductible after just one imaging service or ER visit, limiting its utility as a cost-containment tactic.

Employers reported investing in employee wellness programs. However, they were unable to document whether these programs generated savings. This is not surprising given that the weight of the evidence to date suggests minimal, if any, return on investment. Employers also touted on-site primary care as a promising strategy in Indianapolis, in part because they offer a subscription-based (capitated) model for the delivery of primary care services. However, not all employers have the requisite size or centralized location to offer this service.

Another strategy, direct contracting, is similarly limited to employers with sufficient size and human resources capacity to bypass payers and negotiate with providers. But this trend may be catching on among some Large employers in both Detroit and Indianapolis are actively considering direct contracting, and as noted above, General Motors directly contracted with the Henry Ford system in 2018. In 2019, the Peak Health Alliance, a coalition of employers and citizens of Summit County, Colorado, successfully negotiated price discounts from local providers, lowering 2020 premiums an estimated 11 percent. It remains to be seen whether such efforts are replicable outside of Summit County and if employers will, over the long term, be able to strike better bargains than private payers.

Employers also differ dramatically in their level of engagement and willingness to push insurers to deliver lower prices. One significant impediment is the lack of access to claims data, which would enable them to identify and address cost drivers.  Indeed, in Indiana, a coalition of large, self-funded employers was forced to take Anthem to court in order to obtain access to their claims data, even though they bear the financial risk of their plans. For many other employers, the expertise and knowledge needed to negotiate effectively with sophisticated provider systems are well outside their core competency; they have delegated that responsibility to their third-party administrators and will continue to do so.

5. Public policy strategies have had limited effectiveness

Across our six markets, anti-trust and other public policy strategies have been deployed to constrain the ill-effects of market concentration, but they have had limited effectiveness.

Anti-trust enforcement

Stakeholders in Northern Virginia suggested that the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC’s) intervention in Inova’s attempted acquisition of a smaller independent hospital in Prince William County has had a dampening effect on what had been a region-wide buying spree. However, respondents suggested perhaps the FTC intervention was too little, too late, noting that it would be hard for the “super concentrated” region to become any more concentrated. Nationwide, a lack of resources, a narrow focus on horizontal consolidation within local markets, and some negative court decisions have limited the FTC’s ability to be more than a speed bump to the consolidation boom of the past 10 years.

State attorneys general (AGs) have also played a role in our markets. When the for-profit hospital chain HCA acquired Mission Health System in Asheville, the state AG demanded a 10-year commitment that HCA will not close rural hospitals or require major cuts to services. Similarly, in the wake of Optum’s acquisition of the DaVita Medical Group, which owned many of the largest primary care practices in Colorado Springs, that state’s AG imposed time-limited restrictions on Optum and its owner UnitedHealthCare to mitigate anti-trust concerns in the Colorado Springs market. Specifically, UnitedHealthCare had to lift its exclusive Medicare Advantage contract with one of the two major hospital systems for at least 3.5 years and honor DaVita’s prior agreement with Humana (the main Medicare Advantage competitor in Colorado Springs) through at least 2020.

The “Certificate of Public Advantage” or COPA, has been another tool used by states to limit anti-competitive behavior, post-merger. A COPA allows a state, rather than the FTC, to oversee antitrust issues after a consolidation among providers. In North Carolina, the state legislature granted a COPA to Mission after it merged with the competing hospital system in Asheville in 1998. However, COPAs can be subject to “regulatory capture,” where regulators become overly influenced by the industry they are meant to police At least in North Carolina, the COPA appeared to do little to limit Mission’s acquisition of other nearby hospitals or physician groups. In 2015, Mission lobbyists convinced the legislature to repeal the COPA, paving the way for its purchase by the for-profit HCA system.

Certificate of Need laws

Stakeholders offered competing views on the value of state certificate of need (CON) laws. These laws generally require the state’s review and approval of new hospital facilities. Some observers argued that lifting these laws would encourage competing hospitals to enter the market, potentially putting pressure on the dominant hospital system to lower prices However, while Indianapolis experienced a hospital building boom after it repealed its CON law, payers and purchasers alike report that the increase in capacity not only led to a spike in utilization, it also, somewhat counterintuitively, drove hospitals to hike their unit prices. With more competition, hospitals had fewer patients but the same (or higher) overhead costs, leading them to demand higher prices from commercial insurers.

Rate setting and purchasing alliances

Market and public policy failure to adequately counter rising costs has prompted policymakers in some states to consider using the power of the government to set provider payment rates or to encourage the formation of multi-purchaser alliances to demand price concessions from providers. For example, a bill promoted by the Colorado insurance department would have linked some hospital reimbursement to the amount reimbursed by Medicare, while the administrator of North Carolina’s state employee health plan has proposed setting rates via reference to the Medicare program. Although Maryland was not part of our market case study, stakeholders in Northern Virginia attributed that state’s lower hospital prices to its all-payer rate setting program.

As noted above, Colorado leaders have also encouraged the formation of locally based purchasing alliances—built on the Peak Health Alliance model—that could combine the purchasing power of multiple employers to directly negotiate with hospitals.  Although a payer would be sought to administer the plan, their role in contracting with providers would be greatly diminished.  The concept of employer purchasing pools is not new: past efforts, such as California’s PacAdvantage program, ultimately floundered But it is too soon to tell if these nascent efforts to harness government—or employers’—purchasing power will generate significant cost savings or the type of political support needed to initiate and sustain them.

LOOKING AHEAD

As the literature and our case studies show, consolidation leads to higher provider prices and ultimately higher premiums for consumers. Any policy discussion about improving health care affordability will need to confront the limits of the market to constrain provider monopolies and their resulting increased negotiation leverage.

Misaligned incentives among commercial payers and the “must have” status of many hospital systems mean that market-based tools to hold health care costs down have been largely ineffective or difficult to replicate. And, with 90 percent of markets in the country already highly consolidated, the prospect of greater anti-trust enforcement is “too little, too late.”

In addition to the public policies discussed above, states have implemented or are considering requiring providers to work within cost growth targets and leveraging the power of state agencies to demand price concessions from providers. For example, Delaware and Massachusetts have set targets for annual increases in health care spending, while Montana’s state employee plan recently began setting a Medicare-based “reference price” for covered hospitalizations. In California, state agencies are consolidating their pharmacy purchasing authorities to negotiate lower drug prices, pursuant to a 2019 executive order by Governor Newsom. Also, in litigation that has been closely watched because it could embolden more post-consolidation anti-trust lawsuits nationwide, the California AG and a coalition of roughly 1,500 self-funded employers reached a settlement agreement with one of that state’s largest health systems, Sutter Health, over allegations that Sutter used its market power to drive up prices.

Policymakers can also do more to activate or assist employers in demanding lower prices. The first step is to help inform employers about the true drivers of health care costs by banning clauses in payer-provider contracts that prohibit the sharing of data on reimbursement rates. Employers, particularly those that self-fund their plans, should not have to sue their third-party administrator (as they did in Indiana) to gain access to their own data. Being able to clearly see the data on hospital prices has sparked a number of Indiana employers to demand change. However, if incremental steps such as data sharing don’t ultimately reduce provider prices, it could increase the support for more dramatic steps, such as rate-setting, in response to provider consolidation. “The status quo isn’t an option anymore,” one large employer told us. Indeed, the status quo is no longer an option for most employers, and certainly not for their employees, who are bearing an ever greater burden of the cost of care.