Are health insurers providing fair access?

How well did payers provide “fair” access policies? Based on an recent ICER report titled “Assessment of Barriers to Fair Access“, the headline figures seem pretty good: Overall rates of concordance with ICER’s criteria were 70% for cost sharing of fairly-priced drugs, 96% for clinical eligibility criteria, 98% for step therapy, and 100% for provider…

Do narrow networks save money?

According to a recent paper by Wallace (2023), the answer is ‘yes’, but it does so in a highly inefficient manner. Using 2008-2012 Medicaid data from the New York State Department of Health, the author find that: Leveraging the random assignment of over 50,000 Medicaid enrollees in New York, I present causal evidence that narrower…