Wednesday, April 21, 2021 from 2:00-3:00 pm EDT / 11:00 am – 12:00 pm PDT

Why new Health Affairs study on bundled payments has purchasers talking

Join CPR, a panel of purchaser representatives, and lead researcher, Christopher Whaley of the RAND Corporation for a free, 60-minute webinar exploring the first-ever independent evaluation of a direct-to-employer bundled payment program.

First, Ryan Olmstead will introduce CPR’s work on how the pairing of bundled payments with a Centers of Excellence benefit design can transform health care delivery and the importance and qualities of a strong independent evaluation.

Then, Christopher Whaley of the RAND Corporation will provide an inside look at his recently published study on Carrum Health’s prospective bundled payment program for self-insured purchasers. The research found that, after implementation of the program, episode prices for three selected surgical procedures declined by $4,229, a 10.7% relative reduction. Employers captured approximately 85% of the savings, or $3,582 per episode (a 9.5% relative decrease), and patient cost-sharing payments decreased by $498 per episode (a 27.7% relative decrease). The study analyzed the following surgical procedures:

Finally, a panel of employer-purchaser representatives, including Sidney DiDomenico of PRISM, Jon Camire of Equity Healthcare, and Wendy Smith of Aon, will react to the study findings and share the opportunities and obstacles they see around increasing the use of bundled payment for self-insured employer-purchasers. Scroll down to learn more about our guest speakers.

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Learn more about our guest speakers:

Christopher Whaley is a Policy Researcher at the RAND Corporation and Professor at the RAND Pardee Graduate School. Christopher’s research focuses on health care price transparency and market structure and has been published in Health Affairs, JAMA, the Journal of Health Economics, and the New England Journal of Medicine. Christopher is well-known for his leadership in the RAND Hospital Price Transparency Study.

Sidney DiDomenico is the Director of Employee Benefits for Public Risk Innovation Solutions and Management (PRISM) with current administrative oversight of the second largest Public Agency Healthcare purchasing pool in California. As a 30+ year Healthcare industry professional, Sidney specializes in JPA Administration, self-funded plans, strategic planning and business analytics. Sidney is a strong advocate of cost-containment initiatives that assist employers and plan participants in self-directed access to care.

Jon Camire, FSA, MAAA, is the Chief Financial and Analytics Officer if Equity Healthcare and a Principal at Blackstone. Equity Healthcare (EH) is the healthcare management division within Blackstone Portfolio Operations. Jon Camire is responsible for financial evaluation, benchmarking, and modeling of health plan performance optimization for existing and potential EH Member Companies including benefit design alternatives, clinical programming, and innovation partner opportunities. Prior to joining Equity Healthcare, Jon served as Vice President of Financial Modeling with Unum, spearheading the modernization of the actuarial and financial management capabilities across the enterprise.

Wendy M. Smith is the National Leader of Delivery System Transformation and a Senior Vice President for Aon Health & Benefits. In this role, Wendy works with Aon’s largest self-insured national accounts in assisting them in their journey to value-based care focusing on “the how’ to deliver on the promise of improved quality, lower cost of care, efficiency and satisfaction for employer sponsored plans. Wendy’s career spans over 30 years in healthcare.  Her responsibilities as CEO of carrier health plans in the Commercial, Medicaid and Medicare Advantage/Dual Eligible space including provider contracting, operations, compliance, finance, sales and clinical management.  She also served as CEO for a health delivery system (Seton Health Plan) which included the Employee Population of 15,000 lives, the creation of two joint ventures with Carriers-one a central Texas commercial offering and the second a Managed Medicaid Joint Venture with Amerigroup.