Lewin Group

Background

Founded by Lawrence S. Lewin in 1970, the Lewin Group, which is located in Falls Church, Virginia, recently was acquired by Ingenix, Inc., a leading health information technology company. Lewin's strategic and analytical services aim to help clients improve policy and expand knowledge of healthcare through the integration of evidence-based practices; enact, run, and evaluate programs to enhance delivery and financing of healthcare and human services; deal with shifts in healthcare practice, technology, and regulation; optimize performance, quality, coverage, and health outcomes; and create strategies for institutions, communities, governments, and people to make healthcare and human services systems more effective. Lewin's consultants are drawn from industry, government, academia, and the health professions. Many are national authorities whose strategies for health and human services system improvements come from a personal experience with imperatives for change.

Lewin's policy research work includes both long-term studies and quick-turnaround policy analyses. Federal and state clients and others count on the Lewin Group for their in-depth experience and innovative, analytic approaches.

Modeling Health Reform

The Lewin Group has been a leader in the health reform and coverage arena and is one of the few [Page 683]independent sources of information on the financial impacts of health coverage expansion and national and state health reform initiatives. The Health Benefits Simulation Model (HBSM), developed by The Lewin Group, is a well-vetted, proprietary microsimulation model of the U.S. healthcare system. The model, based on the Medical Expenditures Panel Survey data and surveys of employers and health plans, provides a comprehensive representation of public and private insurance coverage and health spending. These data enable The Lewin Group to simulate the effect of a wide range of health reform initiatives on major stakeholder groups, including employers, state and federal governments, families, and providers. The model has been used by Republicans and Democrats to analyze a broad range of health reform proposals at both the state and the federal level, including The Lewin Group's independent analysis of the Clinton health reform proposal of 1993, comparative analysis of the proposed health plans of President George W. Bush and Senator John F. Kerry (D-MA) during the 2004 presidential campaign, President Bush's health insurance proposal of 2007, and the Healthy Americans Act introduced by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR). The Lewin Group has developed comparisons of alternative coverage expansions for organizations such as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and the Commonwealth Fund. Lewin also has modeled a wide range of health reform models for individual states, including tax credits, the single-payer model, and individual mandate proposals.

Cost-of-Illness Studies

The Lewin Group's cost-of-illness studies provide information on both the direct medical costs associated with a disease and the indirect costs, such as lost productivity and premature deaths. These costs are estimated from the perspective of society, healthcare payers, and consumers.

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