employer benefit decision Archives

Boeing’s model for creating product-based competition among providers

Tory Wolff September 4, 2014

Summary Boeing is creating a benefit design model which sets up providers to compete for their book of lives via provider-branded narrow networks By offering a choice among competing narrow and full network products, the model may make narrow networks more palatable for employees Narrow networks can produce a volume windfall for providers (e.g., share gain, leakage reduction) and profits from better care management and a risk deal Providers “pay” for the narrow network opportunity by being lower cost (often via incremental discounts) in hopes that these gains outweigh cannibalization

Aetna not conceding the private exchange space to the benefits consultants

Tory Wolff May 16, 2014

Summary Aetna is stitching its inventory of ACO deals into a national ACO network and will offer them on its proprietary private exchange (PHIX) Linking ACOs and PHIXs is smart because PHIX’s defined contribution feature creates a strong consumer reward for picking a tighter network product Promising a national network of ACOs is bold: ACO deals depend on willing providers and opportunity in local care patterns; in many geographies, the delivery system isn’t ready or interested. If Aetna can create a national network, it should be attractive to major employers

Narrow networks: adoption growing among smaller groups

Tory Wolff September 30, 2011

Kaiser’s latest employer benefits survey offers some interesting data on the adoption of narrow (or high performance) network products. See chart below: Couple of observations: Overall adoption at the firm level appears to stand at almost 20%. The data probably under-represents the share of firms with a narrow network product: firms which have narrow networks in their second or third most common plan would not appear in this data. However, the share of lives in a narrow network product is probably lower: I would think narrow network products are adopted

Private health insurance exchanges and defined contribution: thoughts on Wellpoint’s acquisition of Bloom Health

Tory Wolff September 23, 2011

Why would a health plan want to buy an exchange? Isn’t the only synergy if the owning plan tilts the exchange in their products favor? And won’t that damage the value proposition of the exchange for buyers and see them flock elsewhere? To understand the Bloom Health acquisition, it is important to recognize that the private health insurance exchange (PHIX) space is quite fluid, consisting of three or four distinct market opportunities. (The fourth — capabilities resell — might not really qualify as a PHIX specific opportunity, it is more

Employer opt-out as a result of reform: survey vs. model

Tory Wolff June 7, 2011

Yesterday, McKinsey released a report suggesting that 30% of employers will definitely or probably stop sponsoring health insurance after the Federal reform “big bang” in 2014. Although disputed by the White House per press reports and the methodology details are limited in the published article, there are four good reasons to think the McKinsey survey could be correct: Contradictory studies (Urban Institute in January 2011 and RAND in April 2011) use simulation methodologies while McKinsey did a survey. With a change as transformative as Federal health care reform, simulation parameters

Rapid shift to “bare bones” coverage among Massachusetts small employers: preview of Federal reform impact?

Tory Wolff June 2, 2011

Summary Massachusetts small group went from an average actuarial value (share of expected medical costs covered by the benefit) of 85% in Q1-07 to 73% in Q4-09. In the same timeframe, actuarial benefit levels in another state for which we could find data (Wisconsin) held steady. Given that this trend was well underway in 2007/08, only a portion of the change can be attributed to the economy. The rest may well be a result of 2006 Massachusetts healthcare reform. If true, back-of-the-envelope analysis suggests 50-70% of the decline in actuarial

Tag: employer benefit decision

Recon takes an analytical look behind select developments in healthcare

Boeing’s model for creating product-based competition among providers

Aetna not conceding the private exchange space to the benefits consultants

Narrow networks: adoption growing among smaller groups

Private health insurance exchanges and defined contribution: thoughts on Wellpoint’s acquisition of Bloom Health

Employer opt-out as a result of reform: survey vs. model

Rapid shift to “bare bones” coverage among Massachusetts small employers: preview of Federal reform impact?

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