A new issue brief released by the Health Equity Committee provides an overview of issues related to designing health benefits to improve health equity. These issues were discussed in the first of a series of workshops with stakeholders and decision-makers focusing on changing cost-sharing features, such as through value-based insurance design (VBID), as well as adding benefits to address health-related social needs. In particular, the brief outlines some of the decision-making process with respect to adding benefits and the challenges of incorporating more equity-improving elements into health insurance plan designs.
( )Academy Senior Health Fellow Cori Uccello presented on “Considerations for Calculating Cost-Sharing Reduction Load Factors” at the Society of Actuaries’ virtual health meeting.
( )Health Equity Committee (HEC) Chairperson Annette James presented at the 2023 Society of Actuaries Health Meeting in Seattle on “Health Equity: What it Means for Actuaries.” Her presentation gave an overview of health equity definitions, its intersection with actuarial work, and highlighted the HEC’s ongoing work, including the upcoming 2023 workshops and symposium focusing on the intersection of benefit design and health equity.
( )The Committee on Property Liability and Financial Reporting (COPLFR) and the Health Practice Council’s Committee on Financial Reporting and Solvency submitted a comment letter to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) Blanks Working Group on proposed exposure to add instructions for the appointed actuary and qualified actuary contacts to the Jurat electronic only section in order to address any actuarial questions.
( )The Active Benefits Committee released an issue brief focusing on the role of actuaries in employee benefits for health policy development.
( )The Long-term Care Reform Subcommittee sent a comment letter to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) Long-Term Care Actuarial (B) Working Group featuring an Academy issue brief, Long-Term Care Insurance: Considerations for Treatment of Past Losses in Rate Increase Requests (October 2018), in response to a working group concern about the lack of a consistent definition of “past losses” in the context of recoupment.
( )The Health Practice Council’s Financial Reporting and Solvency Committee sent a comment letter to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) Long-Term Care Actuarial (B) Working Group inquiring if the Working Group might issue an accounting interpretation for the interaction between Actuarial Guideline LI (AG 51) and Appendix A-010.
( )The Health Practice Council’s Individual and Small Group Markets Committee and Risk Sharing Subcommittee submitted a comment letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) proposed rule for the 2024 Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters (NBPP).
( )Health Solvency Subcommittee Chairperson Derek Skoog provided an update to the NAIC’s Health Risk-Based Capital (E) Working Group at the NAIC’s Fall 2022 National Meeting in Tampa, FL, on the H2—underwriting risk component and the managed care credit calculation in the health risk-based capital formula.
( )Academy Health Practice Council (HPC) Vice President, Barb Klever, provided an update on HPC activities to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) Health Actuarial (B) Task Force during their virtual meeting in lieu of the 2022 Fall National Meeting.
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