CVS Health released its 2018 drug trends report today.

Employee Benefit News (“EBN”) reports that HHS Secretary Alex Azar is urging employers to support the Administration’s programs to control health care and particularly prescription drug spending.  The FEHBlog holds the opinion that high deductible plans should pass along prescription drug rebates to members at the point of sale. In this regard, EBN further reports that “Health savings accounts [which typically are paired with high deductible plans in the employer sponsored coverage environment] continue surging on all fronts. The number of accounts grew 13% over the past year to top 25 million while assets grew 19% to $53.8 billion, according to research firm Devenir. Looking further, Devenir projects the number of HSAs to hit 30 million by 2020, with $75 billion in total assets and $16.7 billion in investment assets.”

Health Affairs blog discusses the efforts of accountable care organizations to care for high need, high cost individuals. All types of health plans must consider these issues.

Health Data Management informs us that “Anthem Blue Cross is joining a Stanford University initiative that aims to advance the development of artificial intelligence for use within healthcare.”

Advancements in patient literacy, patient engagement and healthcare transparency have been identified as the first areas to be addressed through the relationship. Exploring these initial topics is an important step in Anthem’s efforts to create solutions to simplify healthcare for consumers.

In same vein, the Wall Street Journal this evening provides an essay on innovative approaches to help people with dementia stay at home for as long as possible.