America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), a national trade association for health insurance companies in the United States, is this week holding AHIP 2024, its three-day flagship event, which attracts thousands of health industry leaders. The Chief Operating Officer and the Chief Compliance Officer at L.A. Care Health Plan, the nation’s largest publicly operated health plan serving more than 2.6 million residents in Los Angeles County, will be part of a panel titled Regulatory Upheaval: Managing the Pace of Change. Acacia Reed, MBA, and Todd Gower, MBA, will discuss how L.A. Care has stayed on top of the ever-changing rules affecting health care.
Health care is one of the most highly regulated industries in this country, with frequent changes at the state and federal level requiring healthcare providers to proactively work to stay compliant. Reed and Gower will discuss specific regulations in California that impact the state’s contracted Medicaid (Medi-Cal in California) health plans. Among recent changes they will discuss is California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal, or CalAIM. This initiative, which launched in 2023, required Medi-Cal plans across the state to implement a wide range of programs, which meant meeting several new regulations tied to CalAIM.
Joining Reed and Gower on the Regulatory Upheaval panel, which is being held tomorrow afternoon, are Ryan DeMerlis, Senior Manager of Life Sciences and Health Care at Deloitte & Touche, and Mark Hamelburg, Senior Vice President of Federal Programs at AHIP. The panelists will all weigh in on strategies that are used to navigate and comply with evolving regulatory requirements and the role of technology in helping healthcare organization stay compliant. They will also be asked to give their predictions on where the state of the regulatory environment will go in the years to come.
In addition to the panel on regulatory changes, AHIP 2024 will include keynote sessions on building an equitable healthcare system, making prescription drugs affordable, empowering home-based care, and leveraging AI and other tech to bridge gaps in access and modernize health care.