Hospital prices are the leading cause of high and rising healthcare costs for America’s working families and the employers providing sponsored health benefits. To support employers and other healthcare purchasers in their efforts to demand fair hospital prices, the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitionsreleased a new resource, Setting the Record Straight: The Urgency of Achieving Hospital Fair Price. The report identifies and debunks 10 of the top hospital industry counterfactual arguments around high, rapidly rising, and indefensible hospital prices such as lack of correlation between hospital prices and actual cost of providing care. A fair price should allow for a reasonable markup from costs and a price that is competitive with peer hospitals. Houston employers in aggregate pay 316% more than the same service compared to Medicare allowed pricing. The objective of the report is to create employer awareness and then to have direct collective conversations with hospital systems to better understand each other’s challenges and opportunities.
Raising the Bar for High-Quality Mental Health
Thirty-one percent of employers were disappointed at the efforts being made to address gaps in access, and 66% did not feel their behavioral health directories truly reflected what was available to employees according to a recent survey by the HR Policy Association and National Alliance. This National Alliance Action Brief provides four action steps employers can take to raise the bar in their efforts to improve mental health support.
Recognize organizational and personal drivers of mental health and high quality care.
Build personalized, ethnically and culturally sensitive mental health support into the care structure.
Educate with deliberate and purposeful employee communications that resonate across a diverse population.
Hold vendors accountable for improving their services' affordability, timeliness, and appropriateness to each individual.
New Direction to Better Manage High-Cost Claims
High-cost claims have become the single fastest-growing healthcare cost for employers in the last decade. Since 2016, the number of health plan members with claims of $3 million or more has doubled, making these claims a significant threat to employer-sponsored healthcare. The National Alliance conducted in-person and virtual meetings involving more than 50 employers to discuss and develop best practice recommendations. See National Alliance High-Cost Claims Action Brief.
Identify high-cost claims drivers by taking a deeper dive into data on associated costs (e.g., sites of care)
Mitigate or prevent the magnitude of high-cost claims by appropriately diagnosing and intervening early
Ensure high-cost therapies are warranted
Build the infrastructure to support a long-term strategy
