Aetna to reenter the Affordable Care Act market

Posted on by • Posted in ACA, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Insurance Industry, Health Policy, Medicaid, Medicaid Expansion, Supreme Court • Leave a comment

https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/aetna-reenter-affordable-care-act-market

New CVS Health President and CEO Karen Lynch
New CVS Health President and CEO Karen Lynch

The ACA business has improved and Aetna will sell individual coverage in 2022, CEO says.

After a three-year hiatus, Aetna is reentering the Affordable Care Act market.

Karen Lynch, the new president and CEO of CVS Health, said during an earnings call on Tuesday that Aetna will reenter the ACA business. The ACA business has improved, she said, and Aetna will rejoin the ACA marketplace, selling individual coverage in 2022. 

“We’ll accelerate the pace of progress via targeted investments that will drive consumer-focused strategy,” Lynch said. “We will create future economic benefit for CVS Health and its shareholders.”

WHY THIS MATTERS

Aetna said in 2017 that it would leave the market in 2018.

Aetna joined other insurers in leaving or downsizing its footprint as premiums rose and insurers lost money.

The ACA market has grown since the exodus and shown strength in 2021, in lower premiums for consumers, steady enrollment numbers and insurers expanding their marketplace reach.

As COVID-19 has cost many their employer-based health insurance, the Biden Administration has opened a new enrollment period that started on February 15 and goes through May 15.

THE LARGER TREND

President Donald Trump and Congressional GOP members attempted to get rid of the Affordable Care Act that was passed into law by his predecessor, President Barack Obama.

Trump’s successor, President Biden, has promised to strengthen the market, even as the Supreme Court considers whether the ACA law remains valid without the individual mandate’s tax penalty. The Supreme Court is expected to hand down a decision by June.

In 2018, Aetna became part of CVS Health in a $69 billion merger.

Time to stop the hygiene theater

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https://mailchi.mp/41540f595c92/the-weekly-gist-february-12-2021?e=d1e747d2d8

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The billboards along the interstate near our houses still flash, “Wash your hands and wear a mask to stop the spread of COVID”. As we learn more about the virus, it’s increasingly clear that those two actions are not equivalent. A new piece in the Atlantic makes a strong argument that our obsessive surface cleaning and handwashing is largely “hygiene theater”, doing very little to stop the spread of the disease.

COVID-19 is spread almost exclusively by aerosol transmission, breathing in virus particles emitted from an infected person that remain suspended in the air. Spread by fomites, or virus particles lingering on surfaces, is responsible for little-to-no documented transmission, despite numerous studies (of varying quality) showing the virus can “live” on surfaces for up to a month. The author concedes it’s not impossible, but the attention to surfaces is misdirected: “If somebody with COVID-19 sneezes three times onto a little spot on a cold steel table, and you rub your hand around in the snot for a bit and immediately lick your fingers, that disgusting act may well result in you infecting yourself. But the threat of such unbelievably stupid behavior at a mass level shouldn’t warrant a multibillion-dollar war on fomites.”
 
Our obsession with surface cleaning has harmful consequences. The billions of dollars spent on regimented cleaning could be redirected toward better uses. Schools are still waiting for funding to safely reopen. The money devoted to surface cleaning should instead be spent improving ventilation and making sure all teachers and students have high-quality masks. All of the harsh cleaning chemicals we are inhaling may be harming our health. And most importantly, surface cleaning creates a false sense of security, sending a message that it’s OK to dine maskless, indoors, at a restaurant because they’re lowering risk by thoroughly cleaning the menus and tables. As we navigate our way to the end of the pandemic, we need to reinforce the point that masks, ventilation and vaccines, not Lysol and Clorox, are our best weapons against the virus.

Paying due attention to the “why” of strategy

Posted on by • Posted in Alignment, Compelling, Framing, Health Policy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Leadership, Leadership Alignment, Leadership Implementation, Leadership Messaging, Leadership Vision, Strategic Alignment, Strategy, Succinct, Vision • Leave a comment

https://mailchi.mp/41540f595c92/the-weekly-gist-february-12-2021?e=d1e747d2d8

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We spend a lot of our time helping health system executives craft and communicate enterprise-level strategy: entering new markets or businesses, developing new services, responding to competitive threats, exploring partnership opportunities. Strategy is about the “what” and “when”—what moves are we going to make, and when is the right time to make them? Answering those questions requires an understanding of industry and market forces, organizational capabilities, and consumer needs. But there’s another important component that often goes missing in the rush to get to the “how” of strategy execution: the “why”.

Yet understanding why we’re pursuing one path and not another is critical for aligning stakeholders: physicians, operators, and (importantly) the board. Joan Didion famously wrote that “we tell ourselves stories in order to live”, and we’d agree; the “why” is about storytelling. What’s the strategic narrative, or story, that frames our intended actions? Making sure that everyone involved—including our patients and consumers—has a clear understanding of why we’re opening a new facility, or launching a new service, or entering into a new partnership, is a key to success.

It’s about sharing the vision of our desired role as a system, and the part we see ourselves playing in improving healthcare. We’re sometimes criticized for spending so much time on “framing” and drawing “pretty graphics”, but we’ve come to believe that the ability to succinctly and compellingly describe the “why” of strategy is as important as coming up with the vision in the first place. And then, of course, delivering on the “why”—a job made easier if all involved are clear on just what it is.

Stop thinking of telemedicine as a “substitute” for the office visit

Posted on by • Posted in Communication, Consumer Preferences, Consumerism, Data Gathering, Efficiency, Office Visit, Patient Conveniance, Pent-up Demand for Access, Primary Care, Strategy, Telemedicine, Virtual Care Strategy, Virtual Healthcare, Virtual Visit • Leave a comment

https://mailchi.mp/41540f595c92/the-weekly-gist-february-12-2021?e=d1e747d2d8

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“I don’t think we have good enough information to show how we should be deploying telemedicine,” a physician leader recently told us. “If we can’t show that a virtual visit can adequately substitute for an in-person visit, then we should be focusing on making sure patients know it’s safe to come in.” It struck us that viewing telemedicine as a direct substitute for an office visit was a narrow and antiquated way to think about virtual care.

Moreover, the argument that telemedicine visits are potentially cost-increasing if they are “additive” to other care interactions, rather than “substitutive”, is rooted in fee-for-service payment: more patient-provider interactions equals more billable visits, and with more visits, we run the risk of increasing costs.

Telemedicine (both video and phone visits) likely taps into pent-up demand for access by patients who would otherwise not seek care. Some patients could be aided by more frequent, brief encounters; this is considered a failure only when viewed through the lens of fee-for-service payment. (Honestly, with primary care accounting for less than 6 percent of total healthcare spending, it’s hard to argue that additional telemedicine visits will be responsible for supercharging the cost of care.) Of course, there are many clinical situations in which in-person interaction—to perform a physical exam, measure vitals, observe a patient—is fundamental. Patients know this, and understand that sometimes they’ll need to be seen in person. But hopefully that next encounter will be more efficient, having already covered the basics. 

The ideal care model will look different for different patients, and different kinds of clinical problems—but will likely be a blend of both virtual and in-person interactions, maximizing communication, information-gathering, and patient convenience. 

Bolstering coverage availability with consumer education

Posted on by • Posted in ACA, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, Medicaid, Medicaid Expansion, Pandemic, Underinsured, Uninsured • Leave a comment

https://mailchi.mp/41540f595c92/the-weekly-gist-february-12-2021?e=d1e747d2d8

Starting next week, millions of uninsured Americans will have the opportunity to sign up for coverage on the federal insurance marketplace, the result of President Biden’s executive order to create a 90-day special enrollment period. The graphic above highlights the potential impact of this enrollment period on the uninsured population.

According to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis, of the nearly 15M uninsured who are marketplace-eligible, nearly 9M qualify for free or subsidized coverage. Enrollment of these individuals will come with added challenges, as they tend to be less educated, younger, more rural, and less likely to speak English, as compared to the general population. An Urban Institute survey found almost half of uninsured individuals are unfamiliar with marketplace coverage options, and nearly two-thirds lack an understanding of available financial assistance. 

The federal government is dedicating $50M to advertise the special enrollment period, to assist with outreach and education. Given the population most likely to have lost insurance due to the COVID pandemic, this funding will be critical to making sure eligible people take advantage or free or low-cost coverage.