Early lessons from accountable care models in the private sector: partnerships between health plans and providers.

New health care delivery and payment models in the private sector are being shaped by active collaboration between health insurance plans and providers. We examine key characteristics of several of these private accountable care models, including their overall efforts to improve the quality, efficiency, and accountability of care; their criteria for selecting providers; the payment methods and performance measures they are using; and the technical assistance they are supplying to participating providers. Our findings show that not all providers are equally ready to enter into these arrangements with health plans and therefore flexibility in design of these arrangements is critical.

Addressing tobacco in managed care: results of the 2003 survey.

Introduction: Although tobacco control activity in the United States during the past several years has increased dramatically, tobacco use continues to have devastating consequences among all age cohorts.

Methods: In November 2003, a survey of tobacco control practices and policies in health insurance plans was conducted by America's Health Insurance Plans' national technical assistance office. The survey was the fourth and final survey conducted as part of the Addressing Tobacco in Managed Care program.

Addressing tobacco in managed care: results of the 2002 survey.

Introduction: In the United States, tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death and disease. The health and cost consequences of tobacco dependence have made treatment and prevention of tobacco use a key priority among multiple stakeholders, including health plans, insurers, providers, employers, and policymakers. In 2002, the third survey of tobacco control practices and policies in health plans was conducted by America's Health Insurance Plans' technical assistance office as part of the Addressing Tobacco in Managed Care (ATMC) program.

Syndromic surveillance using minimum transfer of identifiable data: the example of the National Bioterrorism Syndromic Surveillance Demonstration Program.

Several health plans and other organizations are collaborating with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to develop a syndromic surveillance system with national coverage that includes more than 20 million people. A principal design feature of this system is reliance on daily reporting of counts of individuals with syndromes of interest in specified geographic regions rather than reporting of individual encounter-level information. On request from public health agencies, health plans and telephone triage services provide additional information regarding individuals who are part of apparent clusters of illness.

Disease management practices of health plans.

Objective: To investigate how health plans manage chronic diseases.

Study Design: Health plan medical directors were surveyed regarding the disease management (DM) practices of their plans.

Methods: We took a stratified random sample of 65 plans, all members of the American Association of Health Plans.