Resources To Stay Informed
2009, Where Are The Health Plans Going?
Once again, we attended America’s Health Insurance Plan’s (AHIP) annual convention to get an assessment of where one of the past “drivers” of this industry is heading. This year’s event was held in San Diego and you could probably guess the main topic of discussion.
Last year there was some mild talk about the possibility of health care reform, but nobody thought much would become of it. Most didn’t really expect much (if any) government interest in taking on health care as an issue considering everything else that was going on. We were in the middle of all of the elections and everybody was throwing around ideas about a lot of things; most of the time without much thought or details behind them. We were dealing with escalating gas prices so our energy policy discussions were rising on the agenda. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were still out there. We were just a short time away from the collapse of our first financial institution that proved to be the beginning of the economic event we’re experiencing today. The health care discussions were actually pretty general and involved technology needs, value-based purchasing, wellness/prevention, and others; but the thought of a major reform of our system looked like it was way off in the distance. There was no sense of urgency.
The following provides some of the primary themes that were discussed at AHIP 2009. We tried to provide a brief review of the key topics we heard to give you with an idea of where the health plan/payer market may be heading. (You can check out our blog at http://www.collaborationhealthcare.blogspot.com/ for some of our daily thoughts and comments from the conference.)
