Summary: “Are escalator clauses, common to most Managed Care Contracts, the driving force behind trend factors?” Bill Rusteberg writes over at RiskManagers.com, his blog. Bill’s a broker in Texas, and a man with an encyclopedic knowledge of health care. “An actuary’s primer I stumbled upon while reading incredibly boring stuff (my answer to sleeping pills) may provide a clue: ‘Medical cost trends include components for many drivers. Net unit price increases from providers drives half of the effect in general. So a 5% increase in a schedule will drive a 10% overall cost increase. The rest of the components include: increased utilization, coding creep, deductible leveraging, etc…’ This is wildly interesting! Escalator clauses average 5% and more (‘more’ being more common), compounded year after frigging year! (Excuse me but I do get emotional sometimes and it’s not a women thing!) That equals 10% compounded year after year after year.” Bill Rusteberg, “Managed Care Contracts & Trend Factors,” RiskManagers.com.
Jeanne Pinder is the founder and CEO of ClearHealthCosts. She worked at The New York Times for almost 25 years as a reporter, editor and human resources executive, then volunteered for a buyout and founded ClearHealthCosts.
With Pinder at the helm, ClearHealthCosts shared honors for the top network public service journalism project in a partnership with CBS News, as well as winning numerous other journalism prizes.
She was previously a fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at the Columbia University School of Journalism. ClearHealthCosts has won grants from the Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York; the International Women’s Media Foundation; the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation with KQED public radio in San Francisco and KPCC in Los Angeles; the Lenfest Foundation in Philadelphia for a partnership with The Philadelphia Inquirer; and the New York State Health Foundation for a partnership with WNYC public radio/Gothamist in New York; and other honors.
She is one of Crain’s Notable Women in Tech. Niemanlab wrote of ClearHealthCosts that “The Internet hates secrets.”
Her TED talk about fixing health costs has surpassed 2 million views.