This teleconference will discuss an important issue for health care journalists covering how hospitals and physician groups are joining together to improve care delivery and yet not run afoul of antitrust laws.

The topic of payment reform for maternity care is an area of concern because childbirth is costly and the quality is uneven, says the Catalyst for Payment Reform. CPR will waive the registration fee for AHCJ members.

In the first two sessions of this forum, speakers will address enrollment trends in exchanges. The first speaker, Paul Mango (director, health care systems and services, for McKinsey & Company), will speak about enrollment trends in exchanges and who has signed up in the marketplaces, which products these individuals chose and what they were charged. The second speaker will be Diana Dooley, secretary of the California Health & Human Services Agency, who will focus on the state”based exchanges and what strategies insures should consider for enrollment in 2015.

Attendees at this conference will hear how health plans are developing new ways to retain existing members and expand their market share by adopting retail marketing strategies and consumer engagement tools.

Later this month, the Supreme Court will hear two cases from for-profit corporations, Hobby Lobby Stores and Conestoga Wood Specialties, challenging the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) requirement to cover contraceptives on religious grounds. On Tuesday, March 11, two weeks before the hearings, the Kaiser Family Foundation will host a public briefing and panel discussion from 9:30 – 11 a.m. EST in its Washington, DC office to discuss the implications of these court cases on the ACA, corporate and individual religious protections, and civil rights.

This panel of Harvard experts will help explain the latest thinking on the nutritional science and take a look at some important policy dimensions to help American adults and children eat nutritionally sound, affordable meals.

This conference, from the Center for Patient Safety, will cover the value of compassion when providing care, benefits to combining human factors with culture change, and communication strategies to address health literacy in contributing to patient safety.

Attendees at this conference will hear presentations on such topics as achieving the full potential of performance measurement, moving payment from volume to value, and regional collaborations designed to achieve the triple aim (lowering costs while improving quality and patient satisfaction), among other topics.

Speakers at this webinar will present on the evolving role of federal nutrition program use at markets, efforts to increase participation of low-income families and the benefits and challenges of accepting public assistance benefits for market vendors. 

Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR) and the Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute (HCI3) will release their second Report Card on State Transparency Laws. The report rates the efforts in all 50 states to report health care price information to the public.

Join a live webcast for the release of the 2014 County Health Rankings to hear about communities across the country taking action to build a culture of health, county by county.

Attendees will hear presentations about strategies health plans and states are using when implementing marketplaces under the Affordable Care Act, and also about the governance structure, operations, and consumer orientation of exchanges.

This is the last day that people can buy health insurance through the marketplace unless they have a “qualifying event.” People who don’t have health coverage in 2014 may have to pay a penalty.