News

V-BID in action: Michigan Medicaid Expansion February 25, 2014 In September 2013, Michigan became the 25th state to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. The new Healthy Michigan Plan will provide coverage to an additional 470,000 residents over the next several years.  Among the provisions of Public Act 107 of 2013, the Healthy Michigan Plan relies on V-BID to improve access, control costs, and enhance personal responsibility. Read more in our newest V-BID Brief: Michigan Medicaid Expansion. Incorporating V-BID into the Healthy Michigan Plan follows the recent CMS rule giving Medicaid programs greater flexibility to vary enrollee cost-sharing for drugs as well as certain outpatient, emergency department, and inpatient visits. When V-BID principles are used to set enrollee cost-sharing levels, Medicaid programs can improve quality of care, remove waste, foster consumer engagement, and mitigate the legitimate concern that non-nuanced cost-sharing may lead individuals to forgo clinically important [...]

August 13, 2013 In a recent New York Times article, Harvard economist Sendhil Mullainathan articulates strong support for clinically nuanced value-based insurance design (V-BID) programs.  Mullainathan highlights the well-documented problem of cost-related medication non-adherence and recommends that high-value drugs such as those that treat heart disease and diabetes be provided at no cost to the populations that need them. The concept of 'clinical nuance' was developed at the University of Michigan Center for Value-Based Insurance Design.  The basic tenets of clinical nuance are: 1) medical services and providers differ in the benefit provided; and 2) the clinical benefit of the service depends on the person using it, as well as where and by whom the service is provided.  Unlike "one-size-fits-all" plan designs that set a single co-payment for all clinician visits, diagnostic tests and drugs, V-BID programs base cost-sharing on the clinical value of the service--not the cost.  Published evidence [...]

June 25, 2013 Value-Based Insurance Design (V-BID), a concept developed and researched by the V-BID Center at the University of Michigan, has garnered recent attention from high profile state health policy makers.  In a U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee hearing, Anthony Keck, Director of the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, testified that he was a "strong believer in V-BID" and hoped to use clinically nuanced designs in the state's Medicaid program.  View the video here.  Medicaid policy expert Seema Verma supported the use of V-BID in Medicaid during her testimony at the same hearing. Separately, during a national summit on state health insurance exchanges, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, Secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, noted that his state was examining V-BID's role in the Maryland Health Benefits Exchange and that the V-BID concept could "improve health outcomes and lower costs."  View the video here. Both Sharfstein and Keck [...]

April 17, 2013 A recent report published by the Partnership for Sustainable Health Care and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation singled out the adoption of Value-Based Insurance Design (V-BID) as one of five recommendations to sustain affordability and quality in America's health care system.  This inclusion again highlights the V-BID concept as one of a small number of ideas with strong, bipartisan support to control costs, enhance clinical outcomes and create a better experience for patients. The report is the result of discussions of a diverse group of organizations that came together over the past year to develop reforms to improve efficiency, efficacy and value in the U.S. health system.  Influential groups including America's Health Insurance Plans, Families USA, the Pacific Business Group on Health, the National Coalition on Health Care, Ascension Health and the American College of Surgeons contributed to the report. "Value-Based Insurance [...]