Initially I thought that estimated savings was a way to predict what savings would be if a certain intervention was employed. But as I read through the Mate syllabus and the source material I now realize that estimated savings is done after the intervention. Actual costs post intervention are known and the hypothetical cost without an intervention are estimated. Thus, estimated savings is the estimated cost without intervention - the actual cost during the intervention.
That said, plan's will want to know what the estimated savings of an intervention are before paying for it (which is a different task than the estimated savings above). I don't really see anywhere in the syllabus that addresses prospectively estimating savings.
I guess in practice a plan would need to find a study (or collection of studies) on a particular intervention they wanted to employ and perform necessary adjustments for their population to attempt at estimating future savings from employing the intervention.
Maybe I'm taking this too far, but at the same time I fully expect the SOA to consistently ask outside the box questions.
That said, plan's will want to know what the estimated savings of an intervention are before paying for it (which is a different task than the estimated savings above). I don't really see anywhere in the syllabus that addresses prospectively estimating savings.
I guess in practice a plan would need to find a study (or collection of studies) on a particular intervention they wanted to employ and perform necessary adjustments for their population to attempt at estimating future savings from employing the intervention.
Maybe I'm taking this too far, but at the same time I fully expect the SOA to consistently ask outside the box questions.
Estimated Savings for care management studies using Statistical Methods
