Attending the annual health insurers confab (AHIP Institute) last week gave one some insight as to the challenges this part of the healthcare industry is facing. There were plenty of sessions on addressing data analytics for everything from population health management to fraud, a number of other sessions on consumer engagement, disease management, health & wellness, and of course the ever ubiquitous sessions on Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs).

But what pervaded many a discussion, panel session, and even keynotes was the level of uncertainty in the market today. Though the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed and signed into law, its future is anything but certain. There is both legal and political uncertainty. Legal in the numerous lawsuits that have been filed, particularly regarding the individual mandate that will ultimately be a Supreme Court decision. Political in that numerous politicians and some presidential contenders have built a portion of their platform on repealing ACA. Such uncertainty makes it extremely difficult for payers and employers to effectively plan for the future. Regardless, there were a few key areas that seemed to attract the most attention: ACO, Consumer Engagement & HIX.

Following are some quick snapshots:

Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs): Plenty of talk on this subject, primarily from the consulting firms who seemed to have run most of the sessions at AHIP. Payers have been experimenting with the model for some time now, well in advance of CMS’s NPRM. In one session, Blue Shield of California (BS-CA) talked about their ACO with Catholic Healthcare West. A very challenging relationship that took 4 years to iron-out and stand-up the ACO and the only reason they kept at it: Calpers was supporting them with an enrollment of 40K new members and Kaiser-Permanente was beating the hell out of both of them in the market. More competitive necessity. This may foretell future attempts and challenges to move to this model. One other important point expressed many times over regarding ACO: data exchange is an ACO’s life-blood.

Consumer/Member Engagement: Numerous sessions drilled down on how payers will market to and serve their members in a deeper, more meaningful fashion but it all sounds just so superficial. Sure, payers are indeed trying to engage the consumer (marketing to new prospects via HIX – payers are really struggling here) and provide consumers with information they can use to make better “value” choices. There are also the ubiquitous efforts of payers to promote health & wellness and institute various disease management programs. Yet based on the sessions attended, seems more like a lot of hand waving and not convinced payers are seeing any meaningful traction in truly engaging their members.

Health Insurance Exchanges (HIX): In accordance with the ACA, a State must have its HIX operational by Jan. 2014. Each State in the country will have their own, slightly nuanced HIX to meet the needs of their citizens and in compliance with their laws. There is no commercial off the shelf (COTs) solution so each exchange will be a separate, custom build. The big winners here are consulting/system integrator (SI) firms (e.g., ACS, CSC, Deloitte, etc.) and they were out in force at this event. They are going to make a killing first standing up these HIXs and then of course keeping the HIX up and running over the years to come. The big challenge, however, is that these exchanges are slated to support Medicaid recipients and most States’ Medicaid IT infrastructures are so outdated that they need to be rebuilt. Even more $$$ to those SI/consulting firms.

What may have been the most bizarre aspect of this event was simply its isolation from the rest of the healthcare sector. This was a very insular event. There were no consumers/members giving presentations or keynotes on what they are looking for from this industry sector. There were few if any providers or representatives of provider organizations talking (either in sessions or keynotes) about what they were looking for from payers, how they wish to engage them, work together to improve health outcomes, improve the value of healthcare delivered.

All very, VERY strange.

If this sector of the healthcare industry is truly interested in improving the quality and value of healthcare delivered, it has its work cut out for them. In our next post we’ll delve into the three overarching challenges payers face with the coming changes brought about by ACA. Small hint, start with trust.

Addendum:

Consulting firm Perficient was also in attendance and wrote about the ACO issue as well that is worth a read.