2008 Adult Immunization Survey: Practices and Policies of Private Health Insurance Plans
In 2008, AHIP conducted a survey of health insurance plans about their immunization practices and policies to identify immunization practices and policy trends compared to its 2005 immunization member survey results. Results from the 2008 survey suggest (alone and in comparison to the 2005 survey), that private health insurance plans consider adult vaccines an essential preventive benefit. This 2008 AHIP survey demonstrates that health insurance plans are increasingly committed to adult immunization on many levels.
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AHIP Vaccines and Immunization Roundtable Report: Vaccine Financing
While immunization rates for children, adolescents, and adults in the United States are at record high levels, the increasing number of new vaccines and the higher prices of some newer vaccines are challenging the successful United States immunization delivery and financing infrastructure. AHIP’s Vaccine Financing Roundtable Report presents the unique perspective from a diverse group of stakeholders who shared the common desire to better understand and to strengthen the nation’s vaccine delivery and financing system. Issues discussed were pertinent to vaccination cost issues, levels of provider reimbursement, provider perception of the vaccine financing problem, and the likelihood of a decline of the number of physicians who provide vaccines in the United States. The report captures the dynamic discussion that occurred throughout the AHIP Vaccines and Immunization Roundtable on Vaccine Financing.
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Health Insurance Plans Making a Difference: Driving Quality Improvement and Accountability
As the nation grapples with the urgent challenges of ensuring all Americans have access to quality, affordable care, health insurance plans are forging ahead with initiatives to improve health care quality through reporting and payment reforms that promote value, encourage ongoing improvement, and advance high-quality health care. To get a better sense of the scope and variety of health plan programs and initiatives targeting quality improvement, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) surveyed a representative sample of commercial and Medicare Advantage member health insurance plans representing more than 95,000,000 covered lives. The survey data, collected in 2009, demonstrate health plan activities and programs that improve quality of care, patient safety, and reduce costs to the health care system. The following report highlights data from the survey.
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AHIP's Resource for Well-Being Map -- Click Here to Explore the Health and Well-Being of America
In order to foster a better understanding of America's health and well-being, AHIP has created an interactive map of America coupled with a revolutionary set of data captured by Gallup and the Census Bureau. The data and map allow you to evaluate six primary domains of America's health and well-being at the state and congressional district level.
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AHIP’s Comprehensive Health Care Reform Proposal
The new reform proposal would: Ensure universal coverage by guaranteeing coverage for pre-existing conditions, fixing the health care safety net, giving tax credits to working families and enacting an individual coverage requirement; Call on the nation to set a goal of reducing the growth in health care costs by 30 percent; Enhance portability for people changing or in between jobs; Provide more affordable health care options for small businesses; and Increase value and improve quality.
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Publication Highlights Health Insurance Plan Innovations in Recognizing and Rewarding Quality
AHIP’s Innovations in Recognizing and Rewarding Quality monograph highlights some of the most innovative approaches that regional and national health insurance plans have taken to advance quality of care and efficiency through the recognition and reward of physicians and hospitals for achieving national benchmarks, demonstrating outstanding performance and making measurable improvements over time. Among the twenty-eight featured programs, some focus on physicians; others focus on hospitals; others involve multi-stakeholder collaborations.
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PricewaterhouseCoopers Cost Study
PricewaterhouseCoopers latest cost study finds that 87 cents out of every premium dollar go directly towards paying for medical services. Prepared by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) on behalf of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), “The Factors Fueling Rising Healthcare Costs 2008” examines the causes of rising health care costs and analyzes how health insurance premium dollars are being spent.
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Learn More about Long-Term Care Insurance
AHIP recently launched a new consumer-friendly website, www.MyLifeMyFamily.com, to better inform consumers about their risks of needing long-term care and highlight the valuable financial protection long-term care insurance provides. The website provides videos that feature real-life stories from current policyholders, an interactive online quiz, and additional resources on long-term care insurance.
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Publication Highlights Health Plan Innovations in Prevention, Wellness
AHIP’s Innovations in Prevention, Wellness and Risk Reduction monograph highlights innovative initiatives that capture health insurance plans’ commitment to programs that prevent disease and improve the lives of their members and their communities by helping them stay well. The publication features forty company profiles and essays by five noted experts who explore the reasons why the related challenges of prevention, wellness and risk reduction for chronic disease require both innovative and comprehensive responses.
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AHIP Releases Recommendations for Addressing Obesity
AHIP’s white paper, Facing the Challenge of Unhealthy Weight: Recommendations for the Health Care Community, offers several recommendations and examines promising programs that health insurance plans and clinicians have developed in collaboration with community partners to encourage body mass index (BMI) screening and address the obesity epidemic. Recommendations include making routine BMI screening and interpretation a standard clinical practice; connecting BMI screening to evidence-based prevention and treatment options; and building partnerships and disseminating promising practices among health plans, physicians and clinicians, employers and community groups.
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Health Insurance Plan Regulation Chart
AHIP recently released a convenient one-page chart summarizing health plan regulation at the federal and state levels. You may click on this link to access a printable PDF version of the chart.
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An Online Guide to Resolving Health Insurance Disputes
This new site is the first step in establishing a clearinghouse for consumer information about the appeals process for health insurance claims. Over the coming weeks, we will continue to build the website to provide consumers with additional information, including state-specific procedures on how to appeal claims.
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AHIP Makes Personal Health Records Technical Documents Available to the Public
Consumers will have greater access to the information they need to optimize their health and health care thanks to a new personal health record (PHR) model developed by health insurance plans. This model contains key information to include in PHRs from health plan claims and administrative data and consumer entered data, and a standard allow consumers to take their PHR data with them if they change health plans.
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Preparing The Way — Disaster Readiness Planning For Health Insurance Plans
AHIP's Readiness Task Force published a report that assembled some of the best practices and procedures employed by health insurance plans in emergency preparedness and contingency planning.
