Publications

Regence Health Policy Center sponsored The Utah Health Policy Project’s (UHPP) annual conference earlier this month, bringing together lawmakers and health care leaders to tackle pressing issues in behavioral health access and health care affordability.

Portland again played host to Oregon State of Reform’s annual health policy conference. Key themes included behavioral health access and workforce, data integration and interoperability, social drivers of health, and state-level Medicaid innovations.

The Regence Health Policy Center convened a panel on provider affordability, featuring insights from AHIP, the National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP), and Washington State Representative Nicole Macri. The panel spotlighted obstacles to affordability including provider acquired drug markups, consolidation, anti-competitive contracting terms, and exorbitant facility fees. 

Industry stakeholders recently gathered in Nashville for AHIP’s Consumer Experience and Digital Health Forum to talk about technology developments and the potential of artificial intelligence in the health care space, with enthusiasm tempered by caution.  

This month, Oregon held a public hearing to hear perspectives from hospitals and health insurers, including Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon, about health care cost growth trends and strategies to address them.

Regence Health Policy Center staff participated in two influential conferences aimed at developing policy solutions to expand access to behavioral health services and curb the affordability crisis.

Biosimilars were first approved for use in the United States in 2015. With a growing number of available biosimilar products and a need to decrease the costs associated with prescription drugs, are biosimilars on track to deliver the savings promised? What role do payers and providers play in advancing broader adoption of biosimilars as a safe and effective treatment? Read key takeaways from the virtual discussion and view the recording!

Greater adoption of biosimilars is one path to driving down drug costs in the United States. Effectively increasing uptake will require collaboration between all segments of the health care system. Regence health plans are leading the industry in biosimilars utilization with 95 percent adoption, thus reducing specialty drug spend by $30 million since 2019.

With the cost of prescription drugs on the rise, specialty drugs that treat the most severe conditions and illnesses are no exception. We explore the importance of cost control strategies to acquire specialty drugs and how some health care providers are aiming to remove these strategies to increase their revenue margins.