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Patient Financial Experience the New Focus for Revenue Cycle Tech

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https://revcycleintelligence.com/features/patient-financial-experience-the-new-focus-for-revenue-cycle-tech?eid=CXTEL000000093912&elqCampaignId=8479&elqTrackId=be91ef7e45814e448e63f5f449863c07&elq=c0883462d36f46f1919e194284b0fcd0&elqaid=8937&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=8479

Facing healthcare consumerism and high deductibles, providers are seeking revenue cycle technology to deliver a high-quality patient financial experience.

Hospitals and practices have traditionally relied on public and private payers to cover the bulk of patient charges and costs for their services. Everything from their revenue cycle technologies to billing workflows has been tailored to create cleaner claims, reduce denials, and collect payer reimbursement.

But in an environment of record spending and changing attitudes towards purchasing and payment, payers are starting to shift more financial responsibility to their consumers. Nearly 21 million Americans had a high-deductible health plan or health savings account in 2017, and AHIP experts anticipate enrollment in high-deductible plans to continue climbing.

Increases in patient out-of-pocket spending are driving individuals to become more discerning healthcare consumers who demand more value for the medical services they receive. Plans and policymakers argue that the rise in healthcare consumerism will ultimately result in lower cost, higher quality care.

In the meantime, however, high-deductible health plans and other increases in out-of-pocket spending are presenting challenges to providers who are not used to this new player: the patient as a payer.

Three-quarters of providers report that they are seeing a noticeable upward trend in what patients must pay out of pocket.   At hospitals, total revenue attributable to patient balances after insurance rose 88 percent from 2012 to 2017.

While payers have been steadily shifting the financial responsibility to consumers, providers have yet to adapt their workflows and systems to collect revenue from this new source while delivering a satisfactory experience to consumers.

For example, nearly all 900 healthcare financial executives recently surveyed by HIMSS Analytics said their organizations still use paper-based billing and collection strategies – despite the fact that the same survey revealed more than half of patients prefer electronic billing methods.

Patients in the survey even said they were more likely to pay their medical bills if they had the option to do so online.

In light of these statistics, providers are facing the difficult task of transforming their manual patient collection processes to address this changing, consumer-focused trend.

“What we’ve seen historically has been that the revenue cycle has been not as well funded or not as strategically prioritized for healthcare delivery networks. A lot of the decision making has been either reactive or more short-term oriented,” Joe Polaris, Senior Vice President of Product and Technology at the health IT company R1 RCM, recently told RevCycleIntelligence.com.

“But we’re starting to see more of a long-term strategic vision coming together for their revenue cycles,” he added. “Organizations understand they need to make transformative change in light of some of the challenges that are only growing in the market, especially the need to be consumer-friendly.”

Revenue cycle technologies that cater to the patient financial experience are part of that transformative change, added Matt Hawkins, the CEO of Waystar, the newly combined revenue cycle management company formed by ZirMed and Navicure.

“Innovators are beginning, more so than ever, to treat the patient as a consumer,” he said. “A lot of health systems are demanding or embracing services or technologies that get them closer to patients from the earliest interaction point.”

The demand for technologies that cater to the patient financial experience is on the rise. And providers could face significant financial losses and patient retention problems if they fail to adapt to healthcare consumerism.

Becoming a patient-centered entity that can collect what it’s owed without alienating its consumers is a significant challenge, experts agree.  But embracing a handful of high-impact strategies could help to ensure that both patients and their providers complete the payment process feeling satisfied.

PRICE TRANSPARENCY LAYS THE FOUNDATION FOR PATIENT FINANCIAL EXPERIENCE

“Consumerism” may be a popular buzzword in the healthcare industry, but providers still have a long way to go before their patients can accurately compare their clinical journeys to their retail experiences.

For one thing, patients often agree to services or procedures with no clear idea of what they will ultimately cost.

Providers rarely offer prices or price estimates to patients prior to service delivery. In fact, the percentage of hospitals that are not able to give consumers price estimates actually increased from 14 percent in 2012 to 44 percent in 2018, a recent JAMA Internal Medicine study revealed.

With patients expecting the ability to plan their expenses, providers are looking to implement new revenue cycle technologies that can deliver accurate cost estimates and boost overall healthcare price transparency.

“How do we give patients shoppable experiences, so they can find out the cost of an MRI?” asked Christy Martin, Senior Vice President of Product Management at Optum360. “In their local care market, where is the best place to go in terms of both quality and cost? Then, if they go to a certain location, what are they expected to pay based on their insurance coverage? What would the out-of-pocket costs be at this point in the year?”

Informing consumers of their patient financial responsibility before the point-of-service is critical for providers seeking to improve the patient financial experience.

“In the immediate future, one of the things that we can unlock using technology is an understanding upfront about what the payment responsibility will be, and have that help inform all of the things that happen subsequent to presenting that to the patient,” Hawkins said.

Providing price estimates up front helped one health system in Oklahoma increase point-of-service collections by $17 million in seven years.

The Consumer Priceline tool at INTEGRIS Health is a database of charges for most procedures and services. The health system also promises to deliver written price quotes to consumers within two days if the service is not already included in the database.

INTEGRIS may be seeing significant patient collection improvements using price estimates, but providers should be aware that databases like the Consumer Priceline tool require a wealth of historical financial data.

“In the immediate future, one of the things that we can unlock using technology is an understanding upfront about what the payment responsibility will be.”

Merely posting chargemaster prices for common services and procedures is not necessarily helpful for patients. Giving consumers information about their patient financial responsibility and out-of-pocket costs is supposed to prevent sticker shock. Yet chargemaster prices are primarily used to start negotiations with payers, and the numbers can seem exorbitant to consumers.

“Chargemaster prices serve only as a starting point; adjustments to these prices are routinely made for contractual discounts that are negotiated with or set by third-party payers. Few patients actually pay the chargemaster price,” the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HMFA) explained to policymakers in May 2018.

Despite reservations about chargemaster prices, CMS recently required hospitals to publish a list of their standard charges online. And providers are scrambling to understand how to present the information in a meaningful way to consumers.

About 92 percent of providers in a recent poll said they were concerned about the new hospital price transparency requirement, and the majority also expressed concerns about how the public would perceive their standard charges.

Now more than ever, revenue cycle technologies that aggregate and analyze information on what patients actually pay will be critical for health systems.

UNIFYING THE PATIENT FINANCIAL EXPERIENCE

Healthcare is nothing like going grocery shopping. Not only do consumers not have access to prices, but the funding mechanism for medical services is also vastly different from a traditional retail experience.

Unlike what happens during a retail transaction, healthcare consumers rarely pay providers directly for services or procedures rendered. Instead, healthcare consumers use insurance plans, health savings accounts, and a wide range of other funding mechanisms to eventually pay providers after a service is delivered. They may also receive several bills and benefit documents from providers and insurers before receiving the final bill listing their financial responsibility.

As patients become more responsible for their healthcare spend, the onus is on providers to simplify the patient financial experience if they want to boost collections and save their bottom line.

Delivering a navigable and consistent financial experience is key to making the most of the newly consumer-driven environment, Polaris advised providers.

“The patient wants to have a clear and transparent journey through the healthcare system, and that’s much more challenging when they have to navigate different departments on different systems, asking for the same data over and over again, never coordinating, and never communicating a holistic end-to-end experience,” he said.

Integrated and seamless revenue cycle technologies aim to deliver a consistent patient financial experience by simplifying medical bills and bringing all providers in a practice, hospital, or health system under the same billing brand.

For example, a multi-specialty physician group in central Texas boosted patient collections by 24 percent and reduced the amount of patient cash sitting in A/R from 14 to two percent in one year by unifying the patient financial experience across their organization.

“Even though we were one clinic with 60 providers, our collection process treated every healthcare encounter separately,” explained Abilene Diagnostic Clinics CFO Andrew Kouba, CPA. “Patients were receiving bills for each physician they saw, which allowed them to pick and choose which bills to pay. When you get four statements and you think you got one experience, you’re confused as a patient.”

Consolidating all of Abilene’s providers under one billing system helped the group to deliver a consistent patient financial experience, which in turn simplified the payment process for consumers.

Revenue cycle departments are finding that end-to-end systems or interoperable bolt-on solutions are worth the investment. The integrated technologies allow healthcare organizations to guide the patient through the financial experience.

But to truly advance the patient financial experience, revenue cycle technology experts agreed that clinical and financial data integration is also vital.

“Being able to leverage the clinical and billing data to provide a better patient experience all the way around is a key capability,” Martin of Optum360 stated.

“While hospitals are certainly focused on providing high-quality care, there’s also this focus on how they can improve the overall patient financial experience to reduce the confusion, complexity, and lack of understanding around patient responsibility. Health systems are looking to provide ease of doing business to address patient responsibility and reduce patient bad debt.”

Revenue cycle technologies that can leverage both clinical and financial data are crucial to transforming the patient experience into a consumer-friendly encounter. Understanding the whole patient can help providers offer a consistent experience from the front office to the billing department.

SELF-SERVICE AS THE ULTIMATE PATIENT FINANCIAL EXPERIENCE GOAL

Price transparency tools and integrated revenue cycle technologies lay the groundwork for a consistent, intuitive patient financial experience. But revenue cycle technology vendors are also observing an increased interest in self-service portals and kiosks for the ultimate retail-like experience.

The disjointed, manual processes involved in the patient financial experience have not been convenient for consumers. Patients often have to interact with a call center or sit down with a staff member to complete basic tasks like scheduling, filling out insurance forms, or paying a medical bill, Polaris explained. In other industries, these tasks have already been replaced by mobile apps or automated systems.

“With digital self-service, we automate tasks like they do in the airline industry,” he said. “We let the patient book an appointment right on their mobile phone, get all the paperwork, fill out the forms they need, and check in at a kiosk.”

“Automation takes repetitive tasks that are frankly not patient- or consumer-friendly out of the process and makes the whole healthcare experience much more satisfying,” he stressed.

Self-service portals and kiosks have the potential to truly transform the patient financial experience into a more convenient, navigable journey. But healthcare organizations would need to invest in large amounts of revenue cycle automation to achieve this goal, Polaris acknowledged.

“Automation takes a lot of forms,” he explained. “There’s always been robotics, user emulation, and basic automation to complete individual tasks. But very few organizations have driven automation of entire processes, and that’s where we’re seeing more investment in transformative automation.”

Healthcare consumers have already voiced their support for more self-service options and more automation. A recent survey of over 500 individuals showed that in addition to offering more payment options and sending simpler bills, expanding access to self-service tools was a top suggestion for improving the patient financial experience.

“Automation takes repetitive tasks that are frankly not patient- or consumer-friendly out of the process and makes the whole healthcare experience much more satisfying.”

Providers are also expressing interest in implementing the relatively new technology in the revenue cycle space. Kouba from Abilene Diagnostic Clinic in Texas said he wanted to create a type of Disney FastPass for the patient financial experience.

“We want to simplify the process from pre-registration through bill collection and try to automate that similar to Disney’s FastPass,” Kouba stated. “Disney is one of the best experiences of all time and when you go there, they want you to interact with the people, all their products, and just enjoy yourselves. The last thing Disney wants you to think of is the terrible lines.”

“If we can remove the pain points and strive to ease that front piece, the patient will be focused on a friendly conversation when they walk in the door with the person that can answer questions, rather than being pestered to pull out their wallet.”

However, Kouba is not convinced that full automation will take over the healthcare industry any time soon.

As much as adopting retail-style approaches can improve the patient financial journey, providers must still ensure their technologies and processes work for them, too.

For example, Kouba decided that self-service technology that automates scheduling is not ideal for Abilene.

“In our group, most of our physicians like to follow their patients to the hospital, so the difficult piece with self-scheduling, especially from the provider’s side, is their schedules depend on what their rounds look like for the day. It’s very difficult to get them to commit to blocks of time,” he continued.

Self-service and automated tools may still be maturing in the revenue cycle technology space. But providers still have the option to improve the patient financial experience through systems that estimate patient financial responsibility and unify the billing experience.

And providers should be looking to the revenue cycle technology market for help. The rise of patient financial responsibility has been steady. Deductibles and out-of-pocket costs have been growing, particularly since healthcare spending growth rates rapidly accelerate.

Implementing the right tools for their patients and their providers will be key to empowering patients to choose the highest value care while ensuring providers get paid for it.

 

 

 

 

Reference Pricing in Germany: Implications for U.S. Pharmaceutical Purchasing

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https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2019/jan/reference-pricing-germany-implications?omnicid=EALERT1557060&mid=henrykotula@yahoo.com

Reference pricing for pharmaceuticals

ABSTRACT

  • Issue: The German health care system resembles that of the United States in important ways — it is financed by multiple private payers and relies principally on negotiation rather than regulation to establish prices. New drugs that offer minimal benefits compared with existing alternatives within a therapeutic class are subject to reference pricing; those with incremental benefits are subject to price negotiations. Together, the reference and negotiated pricing systems have held German prices substantially below U.S. equivalents.
  • Goal: To describe the German reference-pricing system and compare it to tiered formularies and consumer cost-sharing in the United States.
  • Methods: Document review and interviews with leaders in payer, policy, and pharmaceutical industry organizations in Germany.
  • Key Findings and Conclusions: The German pharmaceutical pricing system uses modest levels of consumer cost-sharing to influence consumers’ choices for drugs with therapeutically equivalent alternatives. Manufacturers are free to set the prices of their products, but insurers will not pay more for a new drug than for its comparators unless it offers an additional clinical benefit. For drugs covered by reference pricing, the insurers’ payment maximum is set at a level that ensures sufficient choices of low-priced options. These models offer an alternative to the U.S. system of tiered formularies.

Introduction

In reference pricing — a component of health insurance design — a health care purchaser establishes a maximum payment it will contribute toward covering the price of a drug. It is used when there is a wide variation in the prices for therapeutically similar products. The payment limit is set at the minimum, median, or other point along the range of drug prices within a therapeutic class. If a patient’s physician prescribes a drug with a price at or below the reference limit, the patient pays only a modest copayment. If a more expensive option is selected, he or she pays the copayment plus the full difference between the reference limit and the price of the chosen product.

Reference pricing offers several advantages over the most commonly used insurance designs in the United States, such as annual deductibles and coinsurance, which expose consumers to financial obligations without providing an affordable option or guidance on how to select products offering the best value. To date, however, reference pricing has been applied only by a limited number of purchasers and only to drug classes that feature multiple generic or therapeutically equivalent alternatives. For these therapeutic classes, it can reasonably be assumed that all products work similarly. Purchasers can limit their payments to the level charged for the cheaper products in each class and patients desiring a higher-priced option reasonably can be required to pay the difference themselves. Patients with physician-identified clinical needs for higher-priced options can be granted an exception.

In its efforts to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of pharmaceutical purchasing, the U.S. can learn from Germany, which manages traditional drugs using reference pricing and novel drugs using comparative-effectiveness pricing. Germany has developed evidence-based methods to assess the clinical benefit of new products, establish reference-based payments for drugs that do not offer incremental benefits over existing products, and negotiate new prices for drugs that do offer incremental benefits.1 This approach enjoys considerable social legitimacy as a mechanism for ensuring patient access while moderating payer expenditures.

The health care system in Germany resembles that of the U.S. in several important respects yet differs in others. (See box.) Both feature multiple nongovernmental insurers rather than a single governmental payer, favor negotiation over regulation for determining prices, enjoy declining expenditures for many traditional, nonspecialty drugs but face rising expenditures for novel specialty products, and are embedded in a culture that values patient access to even the most expensive treatments. However, in Germany, the clinical assessment of each new drug is centralized and the negotiation of drug prices is done collectively by the umbrella organization of health insurers, rather than by each insurer individually. This issue brief describes the structure of drug assessment and pricing in Germany and its potential applicability to the U.S. market.2

 

THE INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK OF PHARMACEUTICAL PRICING IN GERMANY

In Germany, reference pricing falls within an institutional system that features publicly regulated and accountable associations of insurers, physicians, and other stakeholders. Statutory and case law establish the rules governing interactions among these entities, and the Ministry of Health continuously monitors and supports their processes. But the government does not directly assess the comparative clinical benefit of new drugs or negotiate their prices. In this regard, it resembles the U.S. framework more than other European systems where the heavy lifting in pharmaceutical cost control is done directly by governmental payers.

The German institutional framework does differ from its U.S. counterpart in important respects. The organization that assesses the comparative clinical performance of new drugs, the Federal Joint Committee (GBA), consists of representatives of the national insurance, physician, and hospital organizations. Patient advocacy organizations have nonvoting seats on the board. The GBA, in turn, delegates the clinical evaluation of new drugs to a privately governed but publically accountable entity, the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG). IQWiG bases its evaluations on: dossiers submitted by manufacturers, which include a systematic review of the incremental benefit of the drug; the clinical trials for initial market authorization by the European Medicines Agency, as well as other clinical trials; reports by technology assessment agencies in other nations; and other available evidence. GBA then makes its official assessment of each drug’s contribution based on the IQWiG study, further input from the manufacturers, and follow-on testimony at public meetings.

The GBA assessments are used by the umbrella organization of Sickness Funds, the GKV-SV. The GKV-SV works within a statutory and regulatory framework that assigns it special rights and responsibilities, and interprets its role as negotiating the best prices from the point of view of the health system, and not merely that of its constituent insurers.

 

Assessment of Comparative Effectiveness

In the German pharmaceutical system, new drugs are assessed and priced relative to existing treatments for the same conditions. Drugs that offer additional clinical benefits are paid higher prices; reference pricing is applied to new drugs with clinical performance similar to products already on the market. Comparative-effectiveness pricing applies to new products that perform better than their comparators.

All drugs authorized for market access by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) are immediately available after launch for physicians to prescribe and patients to use. The manufacturer unilaterally sets the new drug’s price at time of launch and is reimbursed in full at that price for the drug’s first year. During this first year, an assessment is conducted of the drug’s comparative clinical safety and efficacy by the Federal Joint Committee (GBA), a self-governing but publicly accountable entity representing associations of nongovernmental insurers (also known as “Sickness Funds”), physicians, and hospitals.

The GBA makes several important decisions regarding the assessment of each drug’s incremental benefit, with input from the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Healthcare (IQWiG), the pharmaceutical manufacturer, relevant medical associations, patient advocacy organizations, and other interested entities. First and often most importantly, GBA decides which drug will be used as the comparator against which the new product is to be assessed; a drug treating multiple indications may have multiple comparators. If the new drug is found to offer incremental benefits, its price will be negotiated upwards from the comparator’s price, and so the manufacturer has an interest in having the GBA select a high-priced comparator. However, if GBA picks as the comparator a drug with high price but also high efficacy, the new drug faces a more difficult challenge in demonstrating incremental benefit. A finding of no incremental benefit leads to the drug being assigned to a therapeutic class subject to reference pricing. All products are reimbursed at a level based on the lowest prices charged within the class, if it falls within a therapeutic class for which reference prices have been established. If the new drug is found not to offer an incremental benefit but also does not fall into a reference-priced therapeutic class, its price is subject to negotiation with the proviso that the negotiated price not exceed that of its comparator drug.

Second, the GBA chooses the metrics that will assess the new drug’s benefit. These metrics may differ from those used by the EMA, the European equivalent of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), in its review of the drug for initial market authorization and for which the manufacturer has conducted clinical trials. In some cases, GBA has rejected metrics acceptable to EMA, such as “progression free survival” for cancer drugs, as it deems them not relevant to the patient’s quality of life. Progression free survival indicates how many months the patient survives posttreatment without an increase in the size of his or her tumors. This metric is correlated with the more important overall survival metric, which indicates the number of months the patient remains alive posttreatment, but is often not correlated with patient quality of life. In other cases, GBA has required that pharmaceutical firms provide metrics that EMA does not require, principally quality-of-life indicators such as change in pain and nausea.

The GBA delegates the clinical evaluation of the new drug to IQWiG,3 which considers the portfolio of evidence used for market authorization by EMA plus other studies conducted by the manufacturer. The final assessment of the drug’s benefit then is decided by the GBA. Drugs can be judged by the GBA to offer a major, substantial, minor, positive but nonquantifiable, or no incremental benefit, relative to the comparator treatment. The nonquantifiable benefit is used when the drug is considered likely to offer incremental benefit but lacks sufficient evidence for a confident judgment of the scale. Orphan drugs, which often have no direct comparator and for which the clinical evidence may be based on very small patient samples, usually are awarded a nonquantifiable benefit. The GBA also evaluates the strength of the available evidence (weak, moderate, or strong). The clinical benefit of a drug can be reassessed by GBA in response to changes in the available evidence, sometimes triggering a renegotiation of the price.

REFERENCE PRICING FOR PRODUCTS THAT DO NOT OFFER INCREMENTAL BENEFITS

If the GBA considers a drug not to offer an incremental benefit over existing treatments, it usually assigns it to one of the therapeutic classes covered by reference pricing. Manufacturers are permitted to set whichever price they feel is appropriate for drugs falling into these classes, but the umbrella organization of health insurers (GKV–SV) establishes a limit to what individual insurers will contribute toward payment. The GKV–SV sets its payment limit near the 30th percentile in the distribution of prices within each therapeutic class, high enough to ensure that patients have more than one choice but low enough to ensure that the payer is not responsible for paying the highest prices within the class. Most generic drugs fall into the reference pricing system. Approximately 34 percent of drugs, 80 percent of prescriptions, and 33 percent of drug spending in Germany is for drugs subject to reference pricing.4

Patients must pay out of pocket the difference between the price set by the manufacturer and the reference-based reimbursement limit set by the purchaser organization. Many patients are unwilling to contribute out of pocket and prefer drugs priced below the reference limit and their physicians will prescribe drugs at or below the limit. Of products subject to reference pricing, approximately 84 percent are priced by their manufacturers at or below the reference price limit and therefore not subject to additional cost-sharing.5 These products make up 92 percent of all prescriptions made for reference-priced drugs. Manufacturers can submit new prices up to twice a month for drugs in the reference pricing system. The umbrella organization of insurance firms is required to update the therapeutic classes every quarter and the payment limits at least annually. Manufacturers are permitted to lower their prices to the reference limit to avoid the otherwise inevitable reduction in sales volume; many do.

For drugs included in the reference pricing system, patients may be required to pay additional copayments, depending on which drug they select in consultation with their physicians. Patients selecting a drug priced above the reference maximum for their class contribute a copayment plus the difference between their drug’s price and the reference maximum. These extra copayments do not count toward the patients’ annual out-of-pocket cost-sharing maximum. However, the extra copayments are modest, since most of the drugs included in the reference pricing system are older, generic medications with typically low prices. For drugs not included in the reference pricing system, German health insurers require patients to pay the cost-sharing amount only.

Aside from the requirement that patients pay the difference between the reference limit and the full price of a product, which applies only in contexts where the patient can choose a low-priced option, Germany places tight limits on patients’ out-of-pocket financial responsibilities. The statutory copayment ranges from a minimum of EUR 5 to a maximum of EUR 10 per prescription, up to an annual out-of-pocket maximum (for all health care services) of 1 percent of gross income for people with chronic diseases and 2 percent for others. Approximately one-quarter of enrollees also have complementary private insurance, which covers these cost-sharing requirements.6

NEGOTIATED PRICING FOR PRODUCTS THAT OFFER INCREMENTAL BENEFITS

If a new drug is judged by the GBA to offer an incremental benefit over existing treatments, it is referred to the GKV–SV for price negotiations with the manufacturer. The insurer umbrella association uses the GBA’s assessment of clinical benefit, as well as the prices of the comparator drug, therapeutically similar medications, and prices charged in other European nations to negotiate a discount off the new drug’s launch price.

Some drugs are judged by the GBA not to offer an incremental benefit yet do not fall into an existing reference-priced therapeutic class, as there must be at least three therapeutically equivalent drugs to constitute a class for reference pricing. These drugs also have their prices negotiated between the manufacturer and the insurer association, but with the proviso that the price of the new drug cannot exceed that of the comparator product chosen by the GBA.

If negotiations between the insurer umbrella association and the drug manufacturer do not conclude with a price agreeable to both sides, the drug is referred to arbitration. In this process, a three-person panel selected by the manufacturer, the insurance organization, and the GBA assesses the evidence and renders a decision. Through the end of 2017 one of five (35 of 186) new drugs assessed by the GBA received a final price through arbitration rather than negotiation; for another 24, the negotiating parties reached an agreement after an arbitration process had been initiated.7

If a manufacturer cannot obtain an acceptable price either through negotiation or arbitration, it can withdraw its product from the market. Between 2011 and 2017, 148 drugs were subjected to comparative-effectiveness assessment and had their prices negotiated by the insurers and manufacturers. Of these, 29 were removed by the manufacturer from the German market by 2018.8 For 12 of these, the manufacturer chose to withdraw the product immediately following the results of the GBA evaluation — this is known as “opting out” of the pricing process. In 16 cases, drugs were withdrawn in reaction to the determined price, mainly through arbitration, and one was withdrawn because its manufacturer went bankrupt.9

Lessons for the United States

The German system uses modest levels of cost-sharing as an instrument to influence consumer choices for drugs with therapeutically equivalent alternatives. However, it does not apply cost-sharing to new drugs that lack alternatives. Comparative-effectiveness pricing is used for new specialty medications that offer clinical benefits over existing treatments. Manufacturers are free to set the prices of their products, but insurers will not pay more for a new drug than for its comparators unless it offers an additional clinical benefit. For drugs covered by reference pricing, the insurers’ payment maximum is set at a level that ensures sufficient choices of low-priced options. These models offer an alternative to the U.S. system of tiered formularies.

In the United States, the level of cost-sharing and the resulting financial burden on patients is high, especially for patients with complex medical conditions. U.S. payers often impose modest copayments on low-cost drugs with many direct substitutes but onerous coinsurance on high-cost drugs with few substitutes. Coinsurance does not point the patient toward the most cost-effective drug choices. In contrast, insurance designs built on reference pricing identify drugs that are priced below the insurer’s payment maximum and require only minimal cost-sharing.

 

 

 

Ads for short-term plans may be confusing

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https://www.rwjf.org/content/dam/farm/reports/issue_briefs/2019/rwjf451339?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosvitals&stream=top

Image result for short term health insurance

People Googling for ACA coverage often found results that were actually trying to sell them skimpier short-term health plans, according to a report from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute.

Why it matters: Consumer confusion is one of the things regulators worried about most when the Trump administration expanded access to “short-term” coverage.

  • For some people, especially those who do only need coverage for a short time, one of these more bare-bones options might be a better choice than the comprehensive policies sold under the ACA.
  • But if you don’t realize you’re signing up for a plan with incredibly limited coverage and the right to drop you once you get sick, you could be in for a catastrophic surprise.
  • That’s why HHS mandated a disclosure statement about the plans’ limited benefits.

Details: Researchers Googled terms including “cheap health insurance” and “Obamacare plans” and looked at the first 4 results — which are usually ads.

  • Sites that included short-term plans “dominated the results,” though some of those sites also sell ACA-compliant plans. Sites varied in how much information they provided about the differences between the two types of plans.

 

Pre-existing conditions at House Ways and Means panel’s first policy hearing

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Dems hit GOP on pre-existing conditions at panel’s first policy hearing

Dems hit GOP on pre-existing conditions at panel's first policy hearing

The powerful House Ways and Means Committee used its first policy hearing of the new Congress to hammer Republicans on pre-existing conditions, an issue that helped propel Democrats into the majority during the 2018 midterm elections.

Democratic panel members highlighted actions by the Trump administration that they argue have hurt people with pre-existing conditions, like the expansion of non-ObamaCare plans that could draw healthy people from the markets, raising premiums for those left behind.

The administration has expanded access to association and short-term health plans, which cost less than ObamaCare plans but cover fewer services. Republicans say they provide an off-ramp for consumers who can’t afford ObamaCare plans.

The witness invited by Republicans, Rob Robertson with the Nebraska Farm Bureau, said its newly developed association health plan “meets the needs of our members,” who can’t afford ObamaCare plans.

“We’re in this for the long term,” he told lawmakers. “We want to reduce costs, and the costs in the individual market are very, very high.”

ObamaCare’s popular consumer protections became the centerpiece of the November midterms after 20 Republican-led states sued to overturn the 2010 health care law, known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Democrats tied congressional Republicans to the lawsuit after the Trump administration declined to defend ObamaCare and argued that those protections are unconstitutional.

Republicans say there are different ways to cover people with pre-existing conditions, like high-risk pools, which were banned after ObamaCare was implemented. Some pools had caps on coverage and long-waiting lists.

GOP committee members called Tuesday’s hearing political theatre, arguing they also support pre-existing protections but want to lower ObamaCare’s costs.

“Everyone up here wants protections for people with pre-existing conditions. Always have, always will,” said Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), ranking member of the health subcommittee. “We should be careful that we’re not stoking fear that someone is going to lose their health insurance. We have a responsibility to come up with a better health care system because ObamaCare is not the solution.”

Democrats on Tuesday said the GOP proposals aren’t serious.

Republicans have “political amnesia” and have “forgotten what it was like before the ACA,” said Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), chairman of the health subcommittee. “Those with a diagnosis of a serious disease would also get a diagnosis of financial ruin. There were no protections for them before the ACA.”

Some Democratic panel members appealed to the emotional side of the health care debate, with one lawmaker announcing her cancer diagnosis at the hearing.

“This is a cancer I will live with for the rest of my life, but, because of my high-quality healthcare and insurance coverage, it is not a cancer I will die from,” said Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), 67.

Tensions ran high at times during Tuesday’s hearing, with members re-litigating the 2010 passage of ObamaCare and repeated GOP efforts to repeal it.

“Not one Republican up here supports pre-existing protections for the American people,” said Rep. Brian Higgins (D-N.Y.), who at times pounded his fist on the dais.

That drew a testy response from Rep. Tom Reed (R-Pa.), who said Republicans “heard the voices and the fear” from voters in the 2018 midterms when “this issue became the centerpiece.”

“We listened to this American people, as Republicans,” he said.

 

 

 

KFF Health Tracking Poll – January 2019: The Public On Next Steps For The ACA And Proposals To Expand Coverage

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KFF Health Tracking Poll – January 2019: The Public On Next Steps For The ACA And Proposals To Expand Coverage

Key Findings:

  • Half of the public disapproves of the recent decision in Texas v. United States, in which a federal judge ruled that the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) is unconstitutional and should not be in effect. While the judge’s ruling is broader than eliminating the ACA’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions, this particular issue continues to resonate with the public. Continuing the ACA’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions ranks among the public’s top health care priorities for the new Congress, along with lowering prescription drug costs.
  • This month’s KFF Health Tracking Poll continues to find majority support (driven by Democrats and independents) for the federal government doing more to help provide health insurance for more Americans. One way for lawmakers to expand coverage is by broadening the role of public programs. Nearly six in ten (56 percent) favor a national Medicare-for-all plan, but overall net favorability towards such a plan ranges as high as +45 and as low as -44 after people hear common arguments about this proposal.

    Poll: Majorities favor a range of proposed options to expand public health coverage, including Medicare buy-in and #MedicareForAll 

  • Larger majorities of the public favor more incremental changes to the health care system such as a Medicare buy-in plan for adults between the ages of 50 and 64 (77 percent), a Medicaid buy-in plan for individuals who don’t receive health coverage through their employer (75 percent), and an optional program similar to Medicare for those who want it (74 percent). Both the Medicare buy-in plan and Medicaid buy-in plan also garner majority support from Republicans (69 percent and 64 percent­).

 

Figure 1: Most Americans Are Unaware Of Federal Judge’s Ruling That ACA Is No Longer Valid

Texas v. United States: The Future of the Affordable Care Act

On December 14, 2018, a federal district court judge in Texas issued a ruling challenging the future of the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA).The judge sided with Republican state attorneys general and ruled that, since the 2017 tax bill passed by Congress zeroed out the penalty for not having health insurance, the ACA is invalid. Democrat attorneys general have already taken actions to appeal the judge’s ruling in the case and, due to the government shutdown, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has paused the case. Currently, the ACA remains the law of the land. If this ruling is upheld, the consequences will be far-reaching.1 Less than half of the public (44 percent) are aware of the judge’s ruling that the ACA is unconstitutional and most (55 percent) either incorrectly say that the judge ruled in favor of the ACA (20 percent) or are unsure (35 percent).

Overall, a larger share of the public disapprove (51 percent) than approve (41 percent) of the judge’s ruling that the ACA is not constitutional. This is largely divided by party identification with a majority of Republicans (81 percent) approving of the decision while a majority of Democrats disapproving (84 percent). Independents are closely divided (49 percent disapprove v. 44 percent approve).

Figure 2: Partisans Divided On Whether They Approve Or Disapprove Of Federal Judge’s Ruling That The ACA Is No Longer Valid

The Trump administration had originally announced that as part of Texas v. United States, it would no longer defend the ACA’s protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions. While the judge’s ruling was broader than just the ACA’s pre-existing condition protections, KFF polling finds attitudes can shift when the public hears that these protections may no longer exist. Among those who originally approve of the federal judge’s ruling, about three in ten (13 percent of the public overall) change their mind after hearing that this means that people with pre-existing conditions may have to pay more for coverage or could be denied coverage, bringing the share who disapprove of the judge’s ruling to nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of the public.2

Fewer – but still about one-fifth (8 percent of total) – change their minds after hearing that as a result of this decision, young adults would no longer be able to stay on their parents’ insurance until the age of 26, bringing the total share who disapprove of the judge’s ruling to 60 percent.

Figure 3: Majorities Disapprove Of Judge’s Ruling After Hearing How It Impacts Protections For Pre-Existing Conditions And Young Adults

Overall, a slight majority of the public hold a favorable view of the ACA (51 percent) while four in ten continue to hold unfavorable views. (INTERACTIVE)

Public’s Views of Democratic Health Care Agenda

With the new Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, this month’s KFF Health Tracking Poll examines the public’s view of Congressional health care priorities including a national health plan.

Proposals to Expand Health Care Coverage

Most of the public favor the federal government doing more to help provide health insurance for more Americans and one way for lawmakers to expand coverage is by broadening the role of public programs, such as Medicare or Medicaid. The Kaiser Family Foundation has been tracking public opinion on the idea of a national health plan since 1998 (see slideshow). More than twenty years ago, about four in ten Americans (42 percent) favored a national health plan in which all Americans would get their insurance from a single government plan. In the decades that followed, there has been a modest increase in support – especially since the 2016 presidential election and Bernie Sanders’ rallying cry for “Medicare-for-all.” The most recent KFF Health Tracking Poll finds 56 percent of the public favor “a national health plan, sometimes called Medicare-for-all, where all Americans would get their insurance from a single government plan” with four in ten (42 percent) opposing such a plan.

Figure 5: Majorities Across Partisans Favor Medicare Buy-In And Medicaid Buy-In

MALLEABILITY IN ATTITUDES TOWARDS NATIONAL HEALTH PLAN AND LINGERING CONFUSION ABOUT POSSIBLE IMPACTS

This month’s KFF Health Tracking Poll finds the net favorability of attitudes towards a national Medicare-for-all plan can swing significantly, depending on what arguments the public hears.

Depending on what arguments people hear, the public’s views of #MedicareForAll can swing from 71% in favor to 70% opposed highlighting the importance of any future legislative debate 

Net favorability towards a national Medicare-for-all plan (measured as the share in favor minus the share opposed) starts at +14 percentage points and ranges as high as +45 percentage points when people hear the argument that this type of plan would guarantee health insurance as a right for all Americans. Net favorability is also high (+37 percentage points) when people hear that this type of plan would eliminate all premiums and reduce out-of-pocket costs. Yet, on the other side of the debate, net favorability drops as low as -44 percentage points when people hear the argument that this would lead to delays in some people getting some medical tests and treatments. Net favorability is also negative if people hear it would threaten the current Medicare program (-28 percentage points), require most Americans to pay more in taxes (-23 percentage points), or eliminate private health insurance companies (-21 percentage points).

Figure 8: Four In Ten Say Medicare-For-All Plan Would Not Have Much Impact On People Like Them

MEDICARE-FOR-ALL AND SENIORS

On October 10th, 2018, President Trump wrote an op-ed in USA Today arguing that a Medicare-for-all plan would “end Medicare as we know it and take away benefits they have paid for their entire lives.”3 One-fourth of adults 65 and older (26 percent) say seniors who currently get their insurance through Medicare would be “worse off” if a national Medicare-for-all plan was put into place. Four in ten Republicans, ages 65 and older, say seniors who currently get health coverage through Medicare would be “worse off” under a national Medicare-for-all plan. Overall, a larger share of the public say a Medicare-for-all plan will “not have much impact” on seniors (39 percent) or say that they would be “better off” (33 percent) than say seniors would be “worse off” (21 percent).

Figure 10: Democrats Want House Democrats To Focus On Improving And Protecting The ACA Rather Than Passing Medicare-For-All

PARTISANS HAVE DIFFERENT HEALTH PRIORITIES FOR CONGRESS, EXCEPT FOR PRESCRIPTION DRUG PRICES

A majority of the public say it is either “extremely important” or “very important” that Congress work on lowering prescription drug costs for as many Americans as possible (82 percent), making sure the ACA’s protections for people with pre-existing health conditions continue (73 percent), and protecting people with health insurance from surprise high out-of-network medical bills (70 percent). Fewer – about four in ten – say repealing and replacing the ACA (43 percent) and implementing a national Medicare-for-all plan (40 percent) are an “extremely important” or “very important” priority. When forced to choose the top Congressional health care priorities, the public chooses continuing the ACA’s pre-existing condition protections (21 percent) and lowering prescription drug cost (20 percent) as the most important priorities for Congress to work on. Smaller shares choose implementing a national Medicare-for-all plan (11 percent), repealing and replacing the ACA (11 percent), or protecting people from surprise medical bills (9 percent) as a top priority. One-fourth said none of these health care issues was their top priority for Congress to work on.

Figure 11: Continuing ACA Pre-Existing Conditions Protections And Prescription Drug Costs Top Public’s Priorities For Congress

Continuing the ACA’s pre-existing condition protections is the top priority for Democrats (31 percent) and ranks among the top priorities for independents (24 percent) along with lowering prescription drug costs, but ranks lower among Republicans (11 percent). Similar to previous KFF Tracking Polls, repealing and replacing the ACA remains one of the top priority for Republicans (27 percent) along with prescription drug costs (20 percent).

Table 1: Pre-Existing Condition Protections and Prescription Drug Costs Top Public’s Health Care Priorities for Congress; Republicans Still Focused on ACA Repeal
Percent who say the following is the top priority for Congress to work on: Total Democrats Independents Republicans
Making sure the ACA’s pre-existing condition protections continue 21% 31% 24% 11%
Lowering prescription drug costs for as many Americans as possible 20 20 20 20
Implementing a national Medicare-for-all plan 11 20 8 3
Repealing and replacing the ACA 11 3 7 27
Protecting people from surprise high out-of-network medical bills 9 4 10 8
Note: If more than one priority was chosen as “extremely important,” respondent was forced to choose which priority was the “most important.”

The Role of Independents in the Democratic Health Care Debate

One of the major narratives coming out of the 2018 midterm elections was the role that health care was playing in giving Democratic candidates the advantage in close Congressional races. Consistently throughout the election cycle, KFF polling found health care as the top campaign issue for both Democratic and independent voters. While a majority of Democrats want the new Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives to focus on improving and protecting the ACA, Democratic-leaning independents have more divided opinions of the future of 2010 health care law. These individuals – who tend to be younger and male – would rather Democrats in Congress focus efforts on passing a national Medicare-for-all plan (54 percent) than improving the ACA (39 percent) – which is counter to what Democrats overall report. In addition, when asked whether House Democrats owe it to their voters to begin debating proposals aimed at passing a national health plan or work on health care legislation that can be passed with a divided Congress and a Republican President, Democrats are divided (49 percent v. 44 percent) while Democratic-leaning independents prioritize House Democrats working on bipartisan health care legislation (53 percent) over debating national health plan proposals (39 percent).

 

Federal Shutdown Has Meant Steep Health Bills For Some Families

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https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/01/18/686003135/federal-shutdown-has-meant-steep-health-bills-for-some-families

Joseph Daskalakis’ son Oliver was born on New Year’s Eve, a little over a week into the current government shutdown, and about 10 weeks before he was expected.

The prematurely born baby ended up in a specialized neonatal intensive care unit, the only one near the family’s home in Lakeville, Minn., that could care for him.

But Daskalakis, who works as an air traffic controller outside Minneapolis, has an additional worry: The hospital where his newborn son is being treated is not part of his current insurer’s network and the partial government shutdown prevents Daskalakis from filing the paperwork necessary to switch insurers, as he would otherwise be allowed to do.

As a result, he could be on the hook for a hefty bill — all the while not receiving pay. Daskalakis is just one example of federal employees for whom being unable to make changes to their health plans really matters.

Although the estimated 800,000 government workers affected by the shutdown won’t lose their health insurance, an unknown number are in limbo like Daskalakis — unable to add family members such as spouses, newborns or adopted children to an existing health plan; unable to change insurers because of unforeseen circumstances; or unable deal with other issues that might arise.

“With 800,000 employees out there, I imagine that this is not a one-off event,” says Dan Blair, who served as both acting director and deputy director of the federal Office of Personnel Management during the early 2000s and is now senior counselor at the Bipartisan Policy Center. “The longer this goes on, the more we will see these types of occurrences.”

While little Oliver Daskalakis is getting stronger every day — he’s now out of the ICU, according to his father’s local air traffic union representative — it’s unclear how the situation will affect his family’s finances.

That’s because out-of-network charges are generally far higher than being in-network, and NICU care is enormously expensive,no matter what. Those bills could add up, especially as the family’s current insurance plan has an out-of-pocket maximum of $12,000 annually. Because Oliver was born before the new year, the family could face that amount twice — for 2018 and for 2019.

And Daskalakis still isn’t getting paid.

“I don’t know when I’ll be able to change my insurance, or when I’ll get paid again,” Daskalakis wrote to Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., who shared the letter on Facebook and before her Senate colleagues last week.

Other families are also worried about paperwork delays, and the financial and medical effects a prolonged shutdown could cause.

Dania Palanker, a health policy researcher at Georgetown’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms, studies what happens when families face insurance difficulties. Now she’s also living it.

After arranging to reduce her work hours because of health problems, Palanker knew her family would not qualify for coverage through her university job. No problem, she thought, as she began the process in December of enrolling her family in coverage offered by her husband’s job with the federal government.

But there was a hitch.

We could not get the paperwork in time to apply for special enrollment through the government and get it processed before the shutdown,” Palanker says.

Georgetown allowed her to boost her work hours this month to keep the family insured through January, but Georgetown’s share of her coverage will end in February.

Palanker’s treatments are expensive, so she is likely to hit or exceed her annual $2,000 deductible in January — then start over with another annual deductible once the family secures new health coverage.

“I’m postponing treatment in hopes that it is just a month and I’m back on the federal plan in February,” says Palanker, who has an autoimmune disease that causes nerve damage. “But I can’t postpone indefinitely, as my condition will get worse.”

Overseeing federal health benefits programs is within the purview of the Office of Personnel Management, whose data hub is operational, according to a spokeswoman. But getting information to that data hub to make the kind of changes Daskalakis, Palanker and others need depends on the individual agencies that employ government workers.

The OPM has told government agencies “that they should have [human resources] staff available during the lapse, specifically to process” such requests, which are called “qualifying life events,” the spokeswoman says.

Workers enrolled in plans under the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, which covers about 5 million federal workers and retirees in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, can make qualifying life event changes directly with the insurer if they can’t get it processed by their workplace, an association spokesman said Friday.

In a written statement Wednesday, Smith said: “Oliver’s story is a powerful reminder that hundreds of thousands of real families have had their financial and personal lives turned upside down by this unnecessary shutdown.” The Minnesota senator called onthe president to come back to the negotiating table.

For Daskalakis, there’s been some recent good news.

His union representative, Tony Walsh, says both the OPM website and Daskalakis’ insurer now indicate that the family’s request to change to an insurance plan that classifies the hospital as “in-network” will be retroactive to Oliver’s birthday — so the out-of-network charges may not play a role.

Just to be safe, “Joe is currently working on an insurance appeal based on no in-network care [being available],” Walsh reports in an emailed statement.

Still, the family has already received an initial $6,000 bill from the hospital, Walsh notes. He says that $6,000 does not include costs associated with Oliver’s birth or his stay in the intensive care unit — those charges likely are still to come.

Walsh says the shutdown is affecting a broad swath of employees in ways many lawmakers never anticipated.

The workers “are essential to the system,” he says, “and it’s unfair they are being treated this way.”

 

 

 

 

State Efforts to Protect Consumers from Balance Billing

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https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2019/state-efforts-protect-consumers-balance-billing?omnicid=EALERT1547609&mid=henrykotula@yahoo.com

Image result for balance billing

Health insurance rates for working-age Americans have improved over the past decade. But not everyone with health insurance today has adequate financial protection. About one-fourth of insured Americans are underinsured because they have significant coverage gaps or high out-of-pocket costs. And all consumers are vulnerable to surprise medical bills, or balance bills for out-of-network care. These balance bills arise when insurance covers out-of-network care, but the provider bills the consumer for amounts beyond what the insurer pays and beyond cost-sharing, as well as in situations where out-of-network care is not normally covered but the selection of provider is outside the consumer’s control.

Consumers are most likely to receive surprise medical bills from health providers outside their insurance plan’s network after receiving emergency care or medical procedures at in-network facilities. In the latter cases, for example, consumers may select a surgeon and facility in network, but discover that other providers, such as an anesthesiologist or surgical assistant, are out of network. These unexpected medical bills are a major concern for Americans, with two-thirds saying they are “very worried” or “somewhat worried” that they or a family member will receive a surprise bill. In fact, these bills are the most-cited concern related to health care costs and other household expenses.

While employers and insurers may voluntarily protect employees or enrollees from some types of balance billing, no federal law regulates charges submitted by out-of-network providers. States can help protect enrollees from unexpected balance bills. However, state protections are limited by federal law (ERISA), which exempts self-insured employer-sponsored plans, covering 61 percent of privately insured employees, from state regulation.

Despite Recent State Activity, Consumers in Most States Are Not Protected from Balance Billing

We conducted a study, published in June 2017, that found that 21 states had laws offering consumers at least some protections in a balance billing situation. But only six of those states — California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, and New York — had laws meeting our standard for “comprehensive” protections.

Critical elements of state laws that offer “comprehensive” protections against balance billing:

  • Extend protections to both emergency department and in-network hospital settings
  • Apply laws to all types of insurance, including both HMOs and PPOs
  • Protect consumers both by holding them harmless from extra provider charges — meaning they are not responsible for the charges — and prohibiting providers from balance billing, and
  • Adopt an adequate payment standard — a rule to determine how much the insurer pays the provider — or a dispute-resolution process to resolve payment disputes between providers and insurers.

In 2017 and 2018, states continued taking steps to protect consumers. Four states — Arizona, Maine, Minnesota, and Oregon — created balance-billing consumer protections for the first time, and two states — New Hampshire and New Jersey — substantially expanded existing protections. We now classify New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Oregon as states offering comprehensive protections against balance billing. As of December 2018, 25 states have laws offering some balance-billing protection to their residents, and nine of them offer comprehensive protections.

New Jersey has met our criteria for comprehensive protection by creating a strong dispute-resolution process to establish a payment amount for the out-of-network service. Other states have recently acted to protect consumers from balance billing in a more limited way that does not meet our criteria. For example, Missouri’s protections against balance billing apply only if the provider and insurer voluntarily agree to participate in the process.

Interest in a Federal Solution to Balance Billing

At the same time, interest has grown in federal measures, in part, because only federal legislation can protect those in self-funded insurance plans that are exempt from state regulation. During the 115th Congress, proposals were released by Senator Bill Cassidy (R–La.), Senator Maggie Hassan (D–N.H.), Representative Lloyd Doggett (D–Texas), and Representative Michelle Lujan Grisham (D–N.M.). The Cassidy proposal has bipartisan support, with three Democrats and two other Republicans as cosponsors.

Federal approaches vary along some of the same lines as state laws. For example, the Hassan bill relies most heavily on a dispute-resolution approach. By contrast, the Cassidy proposal relies on a payment standard that is the greater of a) the median in-network rate paid by the insurer or b) 125 percent of the average allowed amount across payers. Several federal proposals make protections contingent on failure of providers to notify the consumer that they could be billed by an out-of-network provider. States that have enacted protections have mostly viewed such contingent protections as an insufficient means of protecting consumers. Federal proposals also vary in the degree to which they allow a state role in implementing protections.

Some federal proposals, like some state laws, have potential gaps. For example, some address balance bills only from hospital-based physicians such as anesthesiologists and radiologists. Also, state laws and federal proposals mostly do not address ground or air emergency transport providers.

Looking Forward

The bipartisan interest in the surprise billing issue offers the potential for federal action in the new Congress. States are frustrated by their inability to address all insurance plans. And states without laws have often faced opposition from stakeholder groups, even when there is a consensus around protecting consumers. A federal solution could offer a more comprehensive approach, while giving states appropriate flexibility to seek an approach fitting their particular market environments.

 

 

 

 

 

Health Care Costs 101: A Continuing Economic Threat

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Click to access HealthCareCosts18.pdf

2018 Edition — Health Care Costs 101

Image result for california healthcare foundation

US health spending reached $3.3 trillion in 2016, or $10,348 per capita, and accounted for 17.9% of gross domestic product (GDP). Health spending slowed somewhat in 2016, following the coverage expansions of 2015 and 2014. National health spending increased 4.3% in 2016, down from 5.8% in 2015 and 5.1% in 2014. Despite this slowdown, 2016 health spending grew 1.5 percentage points faster than the economy (GDP grew at a rate of 2.8%).

Looking ahead, health spending is projected to grow at an average rate of 5.5% per year (1.0 points faster than the economy) between 2017 and 2026. At this rate, health care would consume a growing portion of the economy, totaling $5.7 trillion and accounting for one-fifth of GDP by 2026.

Health Care Costs 101: A Continuing Economic Threat (PDF), which relies on the most recent data available, details how much is spent on health care in the US, which services are purchased, and who pays.

Key findings include:

  • Per capita health spending increased 3.5% in 2016 and crossed the $10,000 per capita threshold for the first time.
  • Prescription drug spending declined dramatically from 8.9% in 2015 to 1.3% in 2016, driven in part by fewer new medications on the market, slower brand-name drug spending, and reduced spending on generic drugs.
  • Households and the federal government each accounted for 28% of health spending in 2016.
  • As ACA coverage expansion matured in 2016, the rate of increase in federal spending slowed to 3.9%, lower than private business (5.0%) or households (4.6%).
  • Federal subsidies for ACA marketplace (individual coverage) premiums and cost sharing totaled $33 billion, accounting for 3.5% of federal health spending and 3.0% of private health insurance spending.
  • Public health insurance, including Medicare and Medicaid, paid the largest share of spending (41%) in 2016. Private health insurance paid for a third of health spending and consumers’ out-of-pocket spending accounted for 11%.

The full report, a quick reference guide, and all of the charts found in the report are available under Related Materials. Also available are the datafiles and previous years’ reports.  These materials are part of CHCF’s California Health Care Almanac, an online clearinghouse for key data and analyses describing the state’s health care landscape.

 

 

 

How seniors are being steered toward private Medicare plans

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https://www.axios.com/medicare-advantage-tilting-scales-7db28dd2-25af-4283-b971-21a61fa59371.html

Illustration of a wheelchair on one side of a seesaw with a hand pressing down the other side.

Today is the final day when seniors and people with disabilities can sign up for Medicare plans for 2019, and consumer groups are concerned the Trump administration is steering people into privately run Medicare Advantage plans while giving short shrift to their limitations.

Between the lines: Medicare Advantage has been growing like gangbusters for years, and has garnered bipartisan support. But the Center for Medicare Advocacy says the Trump administration is tilting the scales by broadcasting information that “is incomplete and continues to promote certain options over others.”

The big picture: The government has talked up the benefits of Medicare Advantage plans in emails to prospective enrollees during the past several weeks, the New York Times recently reported. Enrollment is approaching 22 million people, and there are reasons for its popularity.

  • Many MA plans offer $0 premiums and extra perks that don’t exist in standard Medicare, like vision and hearing coverage and gym memberships. MA plans also cap enrollees’ out-of-pocket expenses.
  • Traditional Medicare, by contrast, has higher out-of-pocket costs that usually require people to buy supplemental medical policies, called Medigap plans, as well as separate drug plans.

Yes, but: Federal marketing materials rarely mention MA’s tradeoffs.

  • MA plans limit which doctors and hospitals people can see, and they require prior approval for certain procedures. Provider directories also are loaded with errors.
  • MA plans spend less on care, yet continue to cost taxpayers more than traditional Medicare. Coding is a major problem.
  • People who enroll in MA often can’t buy a Medigap plan if they later decide to switch to traditional Medicare. And others, especially retirees leaving their jobs, may not even realize their employers are enrolling them in Medicare Advantage.

Where it stands: The Affordable Care Act slashed payments to MA insurers, but other Obama administration policies bolstered the industry. And now the Trump administration is helping it even more.

  • Obama officials built the chassis for today’s bonus system, which has been lucrative for plans (and likely wasteful, according to federal auditors).
  • A bipartisan 2015 law that adjusted Medicare payments to doctors killed the most popular Medigap plans, starting in 2020 — a move experts say could indirectly drive more people to MA.
  • HHS championed MA in a new policy document this week, on the heels of positive marketing.

What we’re hearing: Wall Street is beyond bullish on the major MA insurers like UnitedHealth Group and Humana. Supporters of MA like the idea of treating Medicare more like a marketplace, where people have to shop for a plan every year, but experts are worried about how it will affect the average enrollee.

“We know people don’t” actively engage in health insurance shopping, said Tricia Neuman, a Medicare expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation who recently wrote about MA. “It’s just too hard.”

 

 

 

ACA lawsuit puts GOP in an awkward position

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https://www.axios.com/affordable-care-act-lawsuit-republicans-2c0aff0e-e870-49af-a15e-554d34d3ad62.html

Image result for aca lawsuit

A lawsuit that threatens to kill the entire Affordable Care Act could be a political disaster for the GOP, but most Republicans aren’t trying to stop it — and some openly want it to succeed.

Between the lines: The GOP just lost the House to Democrats who campaigned heavily on health care, particularly protecting people with pre-existing conditions, but the party’s base still isn’t ready to accept the ACA as the law of the land.

The big picture: A district judge ruled last month that the ACA’s individual mandate is unconstitutional and that the whole law must fall along with it. That decision is being appealed.

  • A victory for the Republican attorneys general who filed the lawsuit — or for the Trump administration’s position — would likely cause millions of people with pre-existing conditions to lose their coverage or see their costs skyrocket.

Some Republicans want the lawsuit to go away.

  • Rep. Greg Walden, ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, supports fully repealing the ACA’s individual mandate, which the 2017 tax law nullified. That’s what sparked this lawsuit, and formal repeal would likely put the legal challenge to rest.
  • Sen. Susan Collins laughed when I asked her whether she hopes the plaintiffs win the case. “No. What a question,” she said.

But other Republicans say they see an opportunity.

  • If the lawsuit prevails, “it means that we could rebuild and make sure that we have a health care system that is going to ensure that individuals are in charge of their health care,” Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers said.
  • Sen. David Perdue said that “of course” he wants the challengers to win, which would “give us an opportunity to get at the real problem, and that is the cost side of health care.”
  • Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said she views the lawsuit “as an opportunity for us to assure pre-existing conditions and make sure that we fix some of the broken problems,” but that she doesn’t know if it’d be good if the plaintiffs win.

The bottom line: “The longer we’re talking about preexisting conditions, the longer we’re losing. We need to focus on a message that can win us voters in 2020. The debate of preexisting conditions was a stone-cold loser for us in 2018,” said Matt Gorman, the communications director for House Republicans’ campaign arm during the 2018 cycle.