Managing regulations on patient admissions

With increasing regulations to contain cost of health insurance, hospitals face substantial pressure to comply with regulations to admit patients. "Over the last two decades, the demand for hospital services in the United States has been on the rise. Inpatient admissions have increased by 14 percent and emergency department (ED) visits by 40 percent, while the number of staffed hospital beds has dropped by 15 percent.". This has led to new forms of organization of hospitals, and an interesting application for a South-Side hospital in Chicagto can be found here.

International Social Sector Forum 2010: Moving Forward in Social Security

The International Forum on Social Security took place on October 4-6, 2010, in Vienna, Austria. The Forum was sponsored by IBM and Hauptverband der Österreichischen Sozialversicherungsträger, main association of Austrian social security institutions. Here you can find the conference agenda and link to presentations.

Social security in the new economic powers

This note explains the policy of extending social security coverage that could make Brazil, China and India, countries with an increasingly political and economic weight in the world.

Administrative reforms in the collection process

The Slovakia government is proposing a reform to the collection process aimed at consolidate the collection of taxes and social security contributions (see note here). This reform will take advantages of economies of scale and will improve the collection by managing more information. This reform is in line to other reforms in the world that are centerizing common processes. See our Annual Report 2008.

Reorganization of the NHS

Structuring the agencies that provide health insurance is a major challenge, as evidenced by the British experience.

Maine may move to the federal pension program

The large federal countries have been moving towards integrating state/provincial and municipality/county public workers to federal pension schemes, while allowing complementary plans. Yet, sometimes local governments refuse to integrate. This note on Maine shows the problems associated with not participating in the general, national program.

Administrative improvements in Colombian Health System

See the complete note here.

Child care in the USA

This article deals with the travails to sustain child care programs in the USA.

Congratulations to SSA!

Congratulations to the SSA (U.S. Social Security Administration), our member, for their first three places in the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). See details here.

Migration from Spain to the Americas

The figures on migration from Spain to the Americas show some "surprises".

• The South Cone is the definite destination of the Spanish today (nearly half a million).


• Mexico, Canada and the US have really low numbers (around 150 thousand).


• Venezuela is an attractive destination for the Spanish, with 167 thousand.

Labour reform in Spain

Spain is likely to take an individual account system to control the moral hazard problem in unemployment insurance ...

Improved disability claim management in the Social Security Administration

The Social Security Administration is speeding the claim process of disability for rare diseases. This new project is in reality an extensión and a continuation of the operating transformation launched some years ago that is based on statistical analysis of the agency previous records. To read more click here.

Success stories: the Cienfuegos hospital in Cuba

In this recent article published in Health Policy, the authors describe the reform process undertaken by hospital authorities that allowed the hospital to avoid collapse and recover substantially (for not subscribers to the Journal the article has a cost).

Opportunities in integrated healthcare

In this interesting article of McKinsey Quarterly, experts explain why they believe integrated healthcare fails and identify areas of opportunities from successful cases.

More concerns about the US health reform

Here the most recent article of expert Martin Feldstein from Harvard on Obamacare, and here the thoughts of Steuerle from the Urban Institute.

Regarding the CISS annual meeting in Guatemala (fourth report)

In her intervention, Diane Braustein from the Social Security Administration of the United States mentioned that besides the long term challenges the aging of the population is having in the social security system, the global recession is also imposing difficult conditions on the system. As a response, the government trought the ARRA has granted 13 billion dollars as a one time payment of 250 USD to all SSA beneficiaries, a new payment of 250 USD per beneficiary is expected to be granted again to cope to the increase in the consumer price index, and the SSA is implementing new fast track procedures to deal with the increase in the work load due to the fact that it is expected an increase of 15% in retirement claims and 17% in disability claims.

Depression among older adults and the internet

According to research by George and Sherry Ford, access to the internet reduces the incidence of depression among older adults.

From the CISS annual meeting in Guatemala (second report)

In his intervention Lucio Santos from the Ministry of Social Protection in Brazil highlighted what the country has done to face the current global recession. Here the main actions: i) the minimum wage was increased (now is set at 260USD), which increased the incomes of social security beneficiaries; ii) the benefits of the unemployment insurance were extended and; iii) some efforts to extend coverage were put in place, such as the program MEI (individual microentrepreneur), which provides social security benefits to this group and charges 11% of the minimun wage as contribution, and the program to afíliate house workers (in exchange of a contribution which can be deducted from income taxes). As a consequence, the executive secretary adjoint Santos explained that while 800,000 jobs were destroyed during the last months of 2008 and first of 2009, now job creation reaches 1,000,000 employees.

From de CISS annual meeting in Guatemala (first report)

Today took place the inauguration of the XXV Meeting of the General Assembly of the CISS. In the following days we will sumarize the main messages of the presentations (as always, presentation will be available in the CISS web page). Rolando del Cid, CEO of the IGSS, our institution host, explained how the process related to the management of funds changed recently and their outcomes. He argued that a technical approach is needed to obtain good results. In particular he highlighthed three aspects as key to improve the outcomes: i) transparency on how the process is performed  and decisions are taken; ii) an adequate separation of functions; and iii) a system automatized with the use forefront technology. Del Cid mentioned that as a consequence of the change in the process of management of liquid reserves, the investments of the IGSS are getting returns above the passive rate of the banking system, contrary to what was happening in the past.

OECD on Mexico

Recently the international organization issued its 2009 Economic Survey: Mexico. In the document several topics are analyzed, but one very important and close to our sphere is the health system. The study main messages are:

 

1.     1. The vertical integration and horizontal segmentation of the system contributes to inefficiencies and increase cost

2.    2.  While the health reform of2004 and current policies, including the sharing of new facilities between insurers, address some of these issues, there is further scope for improving the efficiency of spending

3.    3.  A clear split between the functions of insurer and provider of care should be introduced throughout the system and any insurer should be allowed to contract with any provider.

4.     4. Administrative costs could be reduced by introducing a unified claims management system, as has been done in other OECD countries with multiple insurers