On February 28, V-BID Center Director, A. Mark Fendrick, MD, presented at a bipartisan Capitol Hill briefing on how value-based insurance design may be used as an incremental solution to improve the health and economic well-being of Medicare beneficiaries. Visit our briefing website for slides and additional reading. 

A New England Journal of Medicine perspective describes innovative cost-sharing initiatives in state Medicaid plans.  New federal rules allow V-BID principles in Medicaid; V-BID played a key role in the Healthy Michigan Plan Medicaid expansion.

This brief reviews the literature on the impact of premiums and cost-sharing on enrollment, service utilization, and health status with particular emphasis on how the research consensus fits with the flexibility Medicaid law gives states to establish premiums and cost-sharing. 

A new analysis by Avalere Health shows that consumers purchasing insurance through exchanges are twice as likely to face utilization management controls on prescription medications compared to people enrolled in employer-sponsored insurance plans.  

A new Mercer survey reports that nearly one-third of the 700 surveyed companies have already increased deductibles or other cost-sharing provisions such as co-pays, and nearly 50% percent surveyed are considering similar moves.  

Monthly premiums, provider visit/prescription co-pays, additional co-insurance and out-of-pocket deductibles should all be considered when selecting a health care plan.  A blog post from Healthcare.gov offers six tips about deductibles and health care costs. 

A new study published in the Milbank Quarterly Review finds that from 2001-2009, health care costs have become a financial burden to almost all Americans.  Researchers found that while median household income rose an average of 1.5 percent per year during that timespan, payments for insurance premiums rose 7.1 percent, and out-of-pocket health costs rose 1.2 percent.  

According to a new University of Michigan study, nearly 25% of breast cancer survivors say they face financial difficulty due, in some part, to the cost of their treatment; 12% report medical debt from paying for treatment.  

A Health Affairs blog describes the Arkansas Payment Improvement Initiative, which aims to create payment incentives that motivate and reward patient-centered management of outcomes and reductions in total cost of care.  Innovations include payment models based on "episodes of care" and incentives surrounding Patient-Centered Medical Homes for health needs and Health Homes for populations with additional, more complex support needs.  

Our most popular issue brief detailing the clinical and economic effects of V-BID principles in patient cost-sharing has been updated to reflect that when incentive-based V-BID programs are combined with targeted programs that reduce the use of harmful or unproven services, these clinically nuanced designs can simultaneously improve quality and contain costs.       

For more information about V-BID, please visit our website and sign up to receive our newsletter.