Our next in-person education program will be held on the morning of Tuesday, December 1, (8:00 – 10:30am) hosted by Ballard Spahr at their offices. The program will focus on practical strategies to help employers comply with ACA reporting requirements and reduce tax burden and penalty risk. Speakers will include Ed Leeds, Counsel for Ballard Spahr, and Ron Arculeo and Judith Mester, Directors of Global Employer Services for Deloitte Tax LLP. In advance of the program, GPBCH employer members will be asked to submit questions they would like to have addressed during the presentation.

Individualized health coaching interventions targeted to individuals based on level of health risk have been shown to have the potential to significantly improve health outcomes and reduce costs of care. For example, in one recently published study (Jonk et al, Medical Care, 2015), the estimated cost saving associated with a risk-stratified health coaching intervention was $412 per person per month. Learn more about the components of health coaching, what to look for from a coaching vendor, how to identify the population most likely to benefit, and how to implement an employment-based health coaching strategy in this webinar. The webinar is being hosted by GPBCH employer member Wellness Coaches USA. An outlook invitation with log-in details will be sent to GPBCH members shortly, but mark your calendars now.

Rapidly rising Specialty drug costs affect every employer that sponsors pharmacy and medical benefit plans. The focus of this presentation is on identifying the underlying factors driving up Specialty drug costs and formulating an employer strategy to manage these costs under both the pharmacy and medical plans.

Our guest speaker will be Robert Kalman, Principal, National Pharmacy Practice, Buck Consultants. Bob has over 30 years of pharmacy benefit consulting experience spanning the full array of issues facing corporate, international, public sector, and not-for-profit organizations. He is a Subject Matter Expert on the economics of the rapidly changing pharmaceutical landscape and its impact on pharmacy benefit plan costs. Bob has worked closely with clients to achieve optimal results in the design, pricing, funding, vendor evaluation, administration, and implementation of pharmacy benefit programs covering active employees and retirees.

Join us for our October Member Education Program as we explore the evidence of racial and ethnic disparities in health care, discuss the impact of disparities and cultural competence on health care quality, and provide guidance for employers on how to identify and eliminate disparities and improve health literacy, in order to improve care outcomes and reduce unnecessary and costly service utilization.

Our guest speaker is Dr. Joseph Betancourt, Director of the Disparities Solutions Center, and Senior Scientist at the Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Betancourt, an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School, is nationally known as an expert on disparities, cultural competence, and health literacy, and their impacts on population health. We’ll also hear from Susan Cosgrove, MPA, of the Health Care Improvement Foundation, about local efforts to improve health literacy through a Pennsylvania statewide multi-stakeholder initiative, and what it means for our members.

Please note that starting with this program, we will be recording educational programs and making them available electronically, after the event…but we still hope to see you on October 8th!

Support for this program has been provided by Merck.

Health Literacy: Why It Matters & What You Can Do - Susan Cosgrove

Recent data indicates that retail health clinics are here to stay. Increasingly, health plans are covering copays for clinic visits and employers are offering incentives to improve utilization. What’s more, as demand for primary care services increases, retail clinics may turn out to be the most convenient way for your employees to access quality care. In this webinar, Tom Sondergeld, VP Global Benefits and Mobility for Walgreens, will talk about this trend and how Walgreens has saved over $3M by implementing a retail clinic benefit strategy.

The College for Value Based Purchasing of Health Benefits (CVBP) was created in 2004 and has since helped over 600 employee benefit managers meet the growing challenges of providing high quality health benefits while managing rising benefit costs. Working together, faculty from the National Business Coalition on Health (NBCH), Greater Philadelphia Business Coalition on Health (GPBCH), and HealthCare 21 Business Coalition (HC21) deliver the curriculum in a 1.5 day program that targets benefit decision makers such as Human Resource Managers, Chief Financial Officers, Health Benefits Managers, Insurance Brokers, and Benefits Consultants. Employers will learn strategies for cost management and value improvement without shifting more cost to employees or reducing benefits. CVBP regional programs are limited to 40 participants so that attendees can closely interact with faculty and customize learning to their company’s needs. The July 13 – 14, 2015 program, convened by the Greater Philadelphia Business Coalition on Health and the Northeast Business Group on Health, will be hosted by Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, PA.

Anyone interested in more information can contact Neil Goldfarb NGoldfarb@gpbch.org or Patrick Croft PCroft@gpbch.org.