The Institute of Medicine Releases Report on Essential Health Benefits Workshop Discussion - September 7, 2011

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) on Aug. 29 released a report that summarizes the results of two workshops the IOM held to collect industry opinions on strategies for updating and evaluating the essential health benefits (EHB) package. For these workshops, the IOM convened health care experts, government representatives and other stakeholders to provide information on current methods for evaluating medical necessity, state-specific concerns and decision-making approaches to determining best practices for an EHB package. The IOM plans to use the information from the workshops in conjunction with other sources to develop its final consensus report. Later this year, the IOM will release a final report with recommendations to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on the criteria and strategies for determining and periodically evaluating the EHB package.