Plan Choice And Affordability In The Individual And Small-Group Markets: Policy And Performance-Past And Present.

The individual and small-group health insurance markets have experienced considerable changes since the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, affecting access, choice, and affordability for enrollees in these markets. We examined how health plan access, choice, and affordability varied between the individual on-Marketplace, individual off-Marketplace, and small-group markets in 2018. We found relatively similar outcomes across the three markets with respect to deductibles and out-of-pocket spending maximums. However, the small-group market maintained greater plan choice and lower premiums-outcomes that appear to be associated with higher insurer participation. States may consider a variety of policy proposals such as reinsurance or the introduction of a public option to increase insurer participation and improve the plan choices offered in the individual market.

The impact of Medicaid expansion on employer provision of health insurance.

Using the 2010-2015 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey-Insurance Component, this study investigates the effect of the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid eligibility expansion on four employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) outcomes: offers of health insurance, eligibility, take-up, and the out-of-pocket premium paid by employees for single coverage. Using a difference-in-differences identification strategy, we cannot reject the hypothesis of a zero effect of the Medicaid eligibility expansion on an establishment's probability of offering ESI, the percentage of an establishment's workforce that takes up coverage, or the out-of-pocket premium for single coverage. We find some evidence suggestive of an inverse relationship between the expansion of Medicaid and the percentage of an establishment's workers eligible for ESI. In line with other employer- and individual-level studies of the effect of the ACA on employment-related outcomes, we find that employer provision of health insurance was largely unaffected by the Medicaid expansions.

Employer-Sponsored Insurance Offers: Largely Stable In 2014 Following ACA Implementation.

Affordable Care Act provisions implemented in 2014 could have influenced employers' decisions to offer health insurance. Using data for 2014 from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey-Insurance Component, we found little change in employer-sponsored health insurance offerings: More than 95 percent of employers either continued offering coverage or continued not offering it between 2013 and 2014. Fewer than 3.5 percent of employers dropped coverage, and 1.1 percent added coverage.

Advancing the preparticipation physical evaluation: an ACSM and FIMS joint consensus statement.

: While the preparticipation physical evaluation (PPE) is widely accepted, its usage and content are not standardized. Implementation is affected by cost, access, level of participation, participant age/sex, and local/regional/national mandate. Preparticipation physical evaluation screening costs are generally borne by the athlete, family, or club. Screening involves generally agreed-upon questions based on expert opinion and tested over decades of use. No large-scale prospective controlled tracking programs have examined PPE outcomes. While the panel did not reach consensus on electrocardiogram (ECG) screening as a routine part of PPE, all agreed that a history and physical exam focusing on cardiac risk is essential, and an ECG should be used where risk is increased. The many areas of consensus should help the American College of Sports Medicine and Fédération Internationale du Médicine du Sport in developing a universally accepted PPE. An electronic PPE, using human-centered design, would be comprehensive, would provide a database given that PPE is mandatory in many locations, would simplify PPE administration, would allow remote access to clinical data, and would provide the much-needed data for prospective studies in this area.

Physician practice competition and prices paid by private insurers for office visits.

IMPORTANCE: Physician practice consolidation could promote higher-quality care but may also create greater economic market power that could lead to higher prices for physician services. OBJECTIVE: To assess the relationship between physician competition and prices paid by private preferred provider organizations (PPOs) for 10 types of office visits in 10 prominent specialties. DESIGN AND SETTING: Retrospective study in 1058 US counties in urbanized areas, representing all 50 states, examining the relationship between measured physician competition and prices paid for office visits in 2010 and the relationship between changes in competition and prices between 2003 and 2010, using regression analysis to control for possible confounding factors. EXPOSURES: Variation in the mean Hirschman-Herfindahl Index (HHI) of physician practices within a county by specialty (HHIs range from 0, representing maximally competitive markets, to 10,000 in markets served by a single [monopoly] practice). MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Mean price paid by county to physicians in each specialty by private PPOs for intermediate office visits with established patients (Current Procedural Terminology [CPT] code 99213) and a price index measuring the county-weighted mean price for 10 types of office visits with new and established patients (CPT codes 99201-99205, 99211-99215) relative to national mean prices. RESULTS: In 2010, across all specialties studied, HHIs were 3 to 4 times higher in the 90th-percentile county than the 10th-percentile county (eg, for family practice: 10th percentile HHI = 1023 and 90th percentile HHI = 3629). Depending on specialty, mean price for a CPT code 99213 visit was between $70 and $75. After adjustment for potential confounders, depending on specialty, prices at the 90th-percentile HHI were between $5.85 (orthopedics; 95% CI, $3.46-$8.24) and $11.67 (internal medicine; 95% CI, $9.13-$14.21) higher than at the 10th percentile. Including all types of office visits, price indexes at the 90th-percentile HHI were 8.3% (orthopedics; 95% CI, 5.0%-11.6%) to 16.1% (internal medicine; 95% CI, 12.8%-19.5%) higher. Between 2003 and 2010, there were larger price increases in areas that were less competitive in 2002 than in initially more competitive areas. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: More competition among physicians is related to lower prices paid by private PPOs for office visits. These results may inform work on policies that influence practice competition.