Interviews

Technology has come to play an important role in the way health plans are interacting with consumers. According to Jay Sheehy, senior vice president of product innovation at EmblemHealth, technology not only gives health plans customized means of communicating with consumers, but it also allows them to better analyze data to tailor messages to each individual.

Patient-reported outcomes are important and necessary measures that should be used more, as they give the patient a voice in terms of the quality of care they receive, said Marcia Wilson, PhD, MBA, senior vice president of quality measurement at The National Quality Forum.

The American Enterprise Institute released a report that detailed several proposals of change for the ACA that could possibly be implemented with the next president. Joe Antos, PhD, the Wilson H. Taylor Scholar in Health Care and Retirement Policy at the American Enterprise Institute, said that though these changes would depend on the party in office, implementing them wouldn’t necessarily be easy.

The upcoming election is going to play a large role in the future of Obamacare, which Patricia Salber, MD, MBA, of The Doctor Weighs In, believes will show an increased number of states expanding Medicaid. She added that the ticket will be important in determining the types of legislatures at the state level in the coming years, which in the end determines whether Medicaid will expand in the holdout states.

Recently, there has been more evidence highlighting the importance of social needs interventions, as these measures get to the root of a patient’s specific health issue and can ultimately impact the sustainability of the healthcare system as well as the patient’s quality of life, said Rocco Perla, president of Health Leads.

Communication and education about the available health coverage options was important in keeping consumers informed about enrollment, which Jennifer Sullivan, director of the Best Practices Institute at Enroll America, said was key in engaging consumers.

Susan Dentzer, president and CEO of The Network for Excellence in Health Innovation, discussed innovation happening in healthcare and the growing discussion around social determinants of health and addressing the upstream drivers of health.

Healthcare providers sometimes fail to consider the other aspects of a patient's life that could be affecting physical health and wellness, said Karin VanZant, executive director of Life Services at CareSource.

Stephen Rosenthal, chief operating officer of The Care Management Company at Montefiore Medical Center, said that population health strategies are the future of the health system, where networks would be responsible for the total costs of care for the population they service.

New health technologies will not automatically address disparities-it all depends on how those tools are used, explained Julia Adler-Milstein, PhD, assistant professor at the School of Information and the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan.

The 7 sets of core quality measures from America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) and CMS derived from looking at areas that were either high prevalence or high cost, said Aparna Higgins, senior vice president of Private Market Innovations and Center for Policy and Research at AHIP.

The value discussion in healthcare is becoming more relevant as the healthcare system increases its focus on better outcomes, said Stephen Grubbs, MD, vice president for clinical affairs at the American Society for Clinical Oncology.

Marcia Wilson, PhD, MBA, senior vice president of quality measurement at The National Quality Forum, explained that one’s opinion of quality measures comes from the type of work they are in — while a primary care physician may think there are too many, a health plan could believe there’s not enough. The challenge then, she added, is filling these gaps by creating and testing new, outcome-driven measures.

Specialty pharmacy may be one of the most rapidly rising costs in all of healthcare, but these costs are shouldered by a small percentage of patients. As such, it is essential that new innovative payment models be developed for these new products, said Steve Miller, MD, senior vice president and chief medical officer of Express Scripts.

Helen Burstin, MD, MPH, FACP, chief scientific officer of The National Quality Forum, said that quality measurement is at the core of transitioning to value-based payment, and that the initiative can’t truly move forward without putting the work in to identify and define what that value is.

Sustainability in the Affordable Care Act marketplaces will occur when the health plans and the providers come together to establish both cost and quality goals and work together to achieve them, explained Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of EmblemHealth.

Although the term "accountable care organization" (ACO) may not be here to stay, value-based organizations are here to stay based on the direction CMS is headed, said Jeb Dunkelberger, vice president of accountable care services at McKesson and clinical & commercial operations at ACO Partner.

There are desirable and undesirable effects of high-deductible health plans, and the use of value-based insurance design may mitigate adverse effects of these plans, explained Niteesh Choudhry, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Orphan drugs are a very lucrative business, and Aimee Tharaldson, PharmD, senior clinical consultant of emerging therapies at Express Scripts, expects to see more orphan drugs reach market as manufacturers focus their development efforts in these areas.

The United States is closer than it has ever been to considering a single-payer health system. Patricia Salber, MD, MBA, of The Doctor Weighs In, discusses how a single-payer system economically makes sense.

Increased risk arrangements have placed more accountability on the provider’s part when it comes to a patient’s care, said Albert Tzeel, MD, MHSA, FAAPL, regional medical director of senior products at Humana.

Although cancer care costs are rising, it is proportional to the total utilization of healthcare resources and spending growth is happening more in areas that have seen innovation, explained Debra Patt, MD, MPH, MBA, director of public policy at Texas Oncology.

With the development of Kaiser Permanente’s new medical school comes an emerging philosophy to more directly align medical education with the industry’s current transition to more integrated, holistic approaches to care, said Bernard J. Tyson, chairman and CEO of Kaiser Permanente.

Incorporating big data is essential as it can help explain failures in medical practice, accumulate patient information, and perform a variety of other useful functions, explained Lonny Reisman, MD, CEO of HealthReveal.

While speaking at the National Association of Accountable Care Organizations Spring 2016 Conference, Stephen Nuckolls, CEO of Coastal Carolina Quality Care, said that fair and transparent benchmarks are important in creating successful ACO programs.

While some insurers are questioning the sustainability of the Affordable Care Act health insurance markets, Erica Hutchins Coe, partner and co-leader of Center for US Health System Reform at McKinsey & Company, said that carriers continue to see new entrants on their exchanges, which she believes makes for a promising future.

Though the implementation of the Affordable Care Act has introduced various beneficial provisions for the American public, Joe Antos, PhD, the Wilson H. Taylor Scholar in Health Care and Retirement Policy at the American Enterprise Institute, said that he still sees room for improvement.

A statewide all-payer claims database would permit more insight into what’s happening with cost and quality of providers, and possibly transform healthcare payment, explained Karen van Caulil, PhD, president and CEO of the Florida Health Care Coalition.

Jay Sheehy, senior vice president of product innovation at EmblemHealth, explained that being able to tailor your message to specific patient populations will help to better engage consumers, which will prove to be more successful for healthcare companies in the long term.

One of the biggest concerns Farzad Mostashari, MD, chief executive officer of Aledade, has about accountable care organizations, is that they are going to experience backlash similar to what managed care has received in the past.