Purchasers, brace yourselves for a radical idea: the time has come for state governments to restore balance, competition and affordability to health care markets. Recognizing that regulation is usually considered
If ever there was a worldwide phenomenon that perfectly captured the concept of “two sides of the same coin” it would be COVID-19. The pandemic exploited the weaknesses of our
Catalyst for Payment Reform, like many employers or teams, has operated in a fully remote work environment since the start of the pandemic. Last week, our team had our first
April 11-17 is Black Maternal Health Week, which shines a spotlight on the disproportionately poor maternal health care and health outcomes Black mothers experience. While these outcomes are the proof,
My name is Torie Nugent-Peterson and I’m the newest member of the Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR) team. As CPR’s Operations and Marketing Associate, I will be responsible for coordinating
On February 10, 2022 price inflation jumped by 7.5% over the past 12 months, its highest annual increase in 40 years. For employers and other health care purchasers that monitor their claims cost and utilization data religiously (who doesn’t?), this news prompts questions from purchasers about how inflation will impact their future health care spend.
The State of Massachusetts made headlines when its Health Policy Commission (HPC) launched what the press called “a double-barreled attack” on Mass General Brigham’s expansion plans. In the first of its one-two punches, the HPC concluded that Mass General’s $2.3B plan was “not consistent with the Commonwealth’s goals for cost containment.”
December is wrapping up and the New Year is right around the corner. But just before looking ahead to 2022, CPR is taking one last look back at 2021. We’re highlighting the Top 10 podcasts and featured experts of this year. These insights are definitely worth revisiting (and remembering in the year to come!).
December is a time for reflection: both on the year that passed, and on the year to come. December is also a time for giving – regardless of one’s faith or lack thereof. This got us thinking at CPR: if we could give one gift to the American health care system in 2022, what would it be, and what can we at CPR do to make our wish-list a reality in the year to come?
In a prior blog article on the 2021 KFF Employer Health Benefits Survey, we noted that employers are in the eye of a hurricane and will have to confront some painful tradeoffs when costs spiral again. But the significant exceptions to employers’ “wait and see approach” to health care benefits during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic are in the areas of telehealth and behavioral health, including at the intersection of the two.
Purchasers: how many times have you attended a meeting with your health plan that focused solely on high-level concepts and success stories, but not a meaningful, tactical conversation about the issues of greatest concern to you? CPR’s Health Plan User Groups (HPUGs) are like a client advisory group meeting, but turned upside down: the clients, not the health plans, set the agenda, offering a forum for a substantive and rich two-way dialogue.
Colorado passed legislation authorizing the creation of its APCD in 2010. Today, the database houses over 718 million medical, dental and pharmacy claims from 44 payers (including 35 commercial plans). What makes Colorado’s APCD so powerful, however, is its pairing with the publicly-facing reporting and analysis that CIVHC provides.
Employers and other health care purchasers – it’s time to step off of the sidelines and onto the field. Across CPR’s membership and broader audience, there has never been more innovation and agency among health care purchasers than there is today.
CPR published a collective set of demands that purchasers should include in their ASO agreements. When multiple purchasers ask for the same thing at the same time, it broadcasts a powerful signal to TPAs on purchaser priorities. Among these aspirational yet foundational expectations, the delivery is in the details. Here are three provisions of note in CPR’s latest model contract language.
Rhode Island established a cost growth benchmarking process to bring greater transparency to the market in 2018. The state also has a first-in-the-nation regulation that caps annual growth in prices paid by commercial health plans, established in 2010.
Instead of operating in a transparent arena with defined rules, employers and their contracted partners are struggling to determine who owns which data and how and when it can be shared to inform, operate, and evaluate health benefits programs.
