Now that the health insurance exchanges and other parts of the Affordable Care Act are being rolled out, providers, payers and other organizations are eyeing what it will take to keep making progress in 2014 and beyond around health reform.
The Operations and Technology Forum 2013, sponsored by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) in Chicago Nov. 18-20, is timed to offer a platform for healthcare and technology organizations to share their strategies, challenges and solutions that work around exchanges and infrastructure as reform evolves.
Among them is a session, "New Marketplace Opportunities and Challenges in a Post-Reform Environment," on Wednesday, Nov. 20 at 8:45 a.m.
Healthcare reform addressed access to insurance coverage but does not go far enough to address the cost and quality issues facing health care, according to Charles Saunders, MD, CEO of Healthagen, an Aetna business. The growing disease burden, the aging population and increasing cost of health care still need innovative solutions.
Saunders (pictured above) will share with the conference how Aetna, which launched Healthagen earlier this year, is working with providers with payer-neutral tools to help them change their business models from fee-for-service to value-based care models to solve the fundamental needs of greater value, coordination and transparency. Aetna and Healthagen are deploying clinical analytics, clinical data decision support, care management and patient engagement technology to better identify and manage individual patient and population health.
"We must collectively address the cost and quality issue and make it easier for consumers to interact with the healthcare system…. to simplify the health care system, and provide greater value for patients, employers and physicians," Saunders said.
Also speaking during the session is:
• Jay Godla, executive vice president and chief strategy officer at Highmark, affiliated with Blue Cross and Blue Shield, which operates health insurance plans in Pennsylvania, Delaware and West Virginia, and provides integrated healthcare delivery and IT service. It completed earlier this year the acquisition of the Allegheny Health Network.
• Robert Coppedge, senior vice president for strategic investment and corporate development at Cambia Health Solutions, which provide services and products for technology, retail health care, health insurance plans that carry the Blue Cross and Blue Shield brand, pharmacy benefit management, and consumer engagement and wellness.