The Thousand Right Things

The America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) 2017 meeting in Austin wrapped up earlier this month, with lots of discussion about population health management – and a special focus throughout on social determinants of health. That focus (which you may or may not find surprising) reflects a broader trend in health plan management involving high-cost, complex consumers.

Since the widespread adoption of parity and the elimination of pre-existing condition clauses and lifetime plan limits, the focus on population health management has shifted to that group, often referred to as “superutilizers” (see No System Too Big? No Niche Too Small . . .