Park Nicollet website provides health-based risk adjustment information
This new Park Nicollet Institute website will provide current information on the implementation and impact of health-based risk adjustment on health plans.  This information is useful for health policy decision makers, researchers, and plan purchasers.  Most of the information will be generated by the Risk Adjustment Impact Study (RAIS) directed by the Health Research Center.

The website will include regularly updated descriptions of public and private health benefit purchasers who have implemented health-based risk adjustment.  It will also include analyses developed with the assistance of the study's Implementation Expert Panel.  The project will survey health plans and actuaries to assess the impact of health-based risk adjustment.

Findings from impact surveys, an information exchange site, educational opportunities, and a list of publications related to health-based risk adjustment, will  be available on-line.

The Risk Adjustment Impact Study began June 1, 2000.  It is sponsored by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation under the auspices of its Health Care Financing and Organization (HCFO) program.

At a two-day retreat in July, the Implementation Expert Panel focused on implementation issues in three areas:  (1) management of the planning and implementation process; (2) technical development of a risk-adjustment method; and (3) data availability and quality.  The Panel also provided guidance on the organization and content of descriptions of purchasers who have implemented health-based risk adjustment.

In September, the National Advisory Panel and project consultants met to discuss  trends in the implementation of health-based risk adjustment and to focus on research questions and methods for the impact assessment component of the study.  The project is currently producing implementation evaluations and issue analyses and planning for the first round of impact surveys, to begin in the first quarter 2001.