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Benefits Tools

• eValue8 Health Care from NBCH, the nation's leading, evidence-based request for information (RFI) tool, is widely used by business health coalitions, their purchaser members, and national employers to assess and manage the quality of their health care vendors.
• Value-based insurance design (VBID) has emerged as an important tool for tamping down health care spending by lowering consumer cost-sharing for everything from preventive care services to prescription drugs. This link features 7 articles sponosored by the California Healthcare Foundation and authored by the leading experts in value based insurance design
• A Purchaser's Guide to Clinical Preventive Services: Moving Science into Coverage, produced by the National Business Group on Health, this guide is a comprehensive reference for benefits design professionals. It provides guidance for the selection of clinical preventive services, disease prevention, early detection, and the economic benefits of these strategies. To have a guide and CD sent to you call our office at 214.382.3036 or contact us via Web.
• PBM Purchaser's Guide, produced by NBCH and URAC, this important "how-to" resource guide will help you evaluate and manage your PBM service. For employers, large and small, knowing what to ask for and what to be aware of can make a difference in meeting your benefits objectives for cost, quality, accessibility, and member satisfaction.
  View the PBM Purchasers Guide
  View the Executive Summary Purchasers Guide
• The Center for Health Value Innovation, a collaborative community of stakeholders, led by employers of all sizes and sectors, who are improving health status while reducing total cost trends using value-based designs. We learn and share as a community of thought leaders, as a knowledge resource, and as innovators for new trends.
• Summary of key research findings from Benfield Group's Wellness Research Survey

For Your Employees

• Hospital Comparison
• HealthAnswers.com provides objective ratings, profiles and directories of 400 health plans, 5,000 hospitals and 600,000 doctors for health care consumers. The web site also has maps, driving directions and links to many individual sites located in the database.
• SafeMedication.com features detailed drug information from the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists that helps consumers find detailed information about their medicines.
• HealthGrades, promotes quality health care by informing consumers of the vast quality differences among the nation's hospitals, by assisting high performing hospitals in promoting their programs, and by helping poor performing hospitals to improve their quality. HealthGrades works closely with the Leapfrog Group to disseminate information on hospital patient safety activities to consumers, payers, and employers. The site also features detailed reports that contain invaluable health care quality information on Nursing Homes, Physicians and Hospitals.
• The USDoL Health Benefits Advisor, the Advisor is designed to help workers and their families better understand employer and employee organization (such as a union) provided group health benefits and the laws that govern them, especially when they experience changes in their life and work situations — such as marriage, childbirth, job loss or retirement. The Advisor may assist employers in understanding their responsibilities under the applicable laws.
• Counting Costs and Calories, this report by Texas Comptroller Susan Combs tells the story of obesity in Texas, its costs to Texas employers and the devastating health effects on today's workforce and our children — the workforce of tomorrow. Obesity is reaching epidemic proportions. In 2005, there were 3 million more obese adults in Texas than in 1990. Employers bear the majority of costs associated with obesity. If nothing is done to reverse or slow this trend, the cost to employers could reach $15.8 billion by 2025. Ultimately, we must become a society focused on preventing obesity, rather than treating the diseases it causes.
• Ask Medicare, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) launched the Ask Medicare initiative in 2008 with the goal of helping those who care for Medicare beneficiaries. CMS developed several tools to support this initiative:
  

  	When Employees Become Caregivers, a manager's workbook to bridge the gap between employers' expectations and caregivers' needs, and provide guidance on eldercare programs in the workplace.
  	Medicare Basics: A Guide for Caregivers, helps caregivers navigate health issues for Medicare beneficiaries.
  	Discharge Planning Checklist, developed to help caregivers and beneficiaries understand their needs and assess their ability to meet those needs after their stay in a hospital.

• URAC Workforce Development Initiative, URAC's new Workforce Development initiative offers consumers several free multi-media tools they can use to make better health care decisions, assume more "ownership" over their health care, and increase their ability to take on new behaviors to improve their health and the quality of care they receive. Included in this set of consumer resources is a free eLearning course, "Understanding Your Health Insurance." The course covers key areas including defining health insurance concepts; identifying the impact of rising health care costs; comparing the different types of health insurance plans; and defining important elements of health insurance, including prescription coverage, case management, and wellness.

Coalitions

• National Business Coalition on Health, this organization has a membership of 90 employer led coalitions across the United States, representing 8,000 employers and 35 million employees and their dependents. NBCH and its members have a common goal of market-based health care reform including improving the value, meaning the quality and cost, of health care provided through employer-sponsored health plans, as well as the health care delivery systems of entire communities. Termed the coalition of coalitions, NBCH represents each community coalition at the national level and serves as a resource, clearinghouse and information center linking all coalitions. As the national voice for Community Health Reform to regions with employers yet to be organized into a collective power. Providing expertise resources and a voice to its member coalition across the country, NBCH is dedicated to making the coalition movement the vehicle for meaningful change in the health care system throughout the United States.
• LeapFrog Group, the Leapfrog Group's goal is to initiate breakthroughs in the safety and quality of health care in the US. The Leapfrog Group has just launched a web-survey to gather information from hospitals nationwide about their practices on three hospital patient safety standards. Leapfrog purchasers will share results with enrollees and the general public.
• Texas Coalition for Worksite Wellness, a program of TBGH, is dedicated to finding positive, innovative solutions to the challenges posed by our current health care system by emphasizing prevention, wellness and disease management in our workplaces and health benefit systems. Many tools and resources are available on this site.
• Texas Coalition for Worksite Wellness Newsletters, the Texas Coalition for Worksite Wellness' mission is to improve the health status of the Texas workforce by increasing the number of Texas businesses that incorporate employee prevention, wellness and value-based benefit design into their corporate business and health care strategies. Click the link above to view their newsletters.

Disease Management

• American Heart Association, features information on the American Heart Association.
• American Diabetes Association, the American Diabetes Association's Winning at Work: Detecting, Preventing and Managing Diabetes for a Healthy Workplace program provides the resources your employees need to live healthier lives — whether they are working to prevent diabetes or to manage diabetes. The program includes four key components: increasing awareness, detecting diabetes, preventing diabetes and managing diabetes and includes lunch and learn presentations and HR Training. Contact your local ADA office for more information.
• American Cancer Society
• Welcoa
• 2008 Type 2 Diabetes Report, 2008 report on the prevalence, costs and quality of care for Texans with Type 2 diabetes
• 2009 Type 2 Diabetes Report, 2009 report on the prevalence, costs and quality of care for Texans with Type 2 diabetes
• 2010 Type 2 Diabetes Report, 2010 report on the prevalence, costs and quality of care for Texans with Type 2 diabetes

Legislative

• Texas Association of Business, representing companies from the largest multi-national corporations to small businesses in nearly every community of our state, TAB works to improve the Texas business climate and to help make our state's economy the strongest in the world.
• Texas Health Facts—The Center for Health Statistics (CHS) provides comprehensive health data for Texas. Popular features such as Texas Health Facts ("County Fact Sheets"), the Texas Health Data query system and all Texas workforce information from the Health Professions Resource Center, as well as a variety of on-line reports published by CHS. The newest addition to these is the Vital Statistics Annual Report tables.

Quality Improvement

• Making Health Care Safer: A Critical Analysis of Patient Safety Practices, prepared for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Prepared by University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) — Stanford University Evidence-based Practice Center.