Confronted with conflicting pressures to stem double-digit premium increases and provide unfettered access to care, health plans are developing products that shift more financial and care management responsibilities to consumers, according to findings from the Community Tracking Study. Plans are...

More health plan consolidation, higher health care costs, and persistent hospital difficulties signal increasing concern about the future of the Syracuse health market, according to a new report from the Community Tracking Study.

Rapidly rising health insurance premiums and a worsening medical malpractice insurance climate threaten to decrease health insurance coverage and access to health care in Miami.

Large increases in health care costs combined with an economic slowdown have created pressures for health plans and employers to reconsider cost containment strategies that were scaled back after the managed care backlash. This paper examines how plans’ approaches to cost containment and care...

Disease management approaches survived the 1990s backlash against managed care because of their potential for consumer-friendly cost containment, but purchasers have been cautious about investing heavily in them because of uncertainty about return on investment. This article examines how...

More health plan consolidation, higher health care costs, and persistent hospital difficulties signal increasing concern about the future of the Syracuse health market, according to a new report from the Community Tracking Study.

In May 2010, a team of researchers from the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC), as part of the Community Tracking Study (CTS), visited the northern New Jersey metropolitan area to study how health care is organized, financed and delivered in that community.

Managed care plans—pressured by a variety of marketplace forces that have been intensifying over the past two years—are making important shifts in their overall business strategy. For example, they are moving to offer less restrictive managed care products and product features that...

Rapidly rising health insurance premiums are prompting Little Rock employers to shift more costs to workers, who are finding coverage increasingly difficult to afford, according to this new Community Tracking Study report.