... leading potential medical breakthroughs in each area, considering factors of potential impact and cost. Based on these responses and our preliminary literature review, we selected a number of potential ... the status quo of medical technology, a potentially useful concept for “what-if” modeling (since it allows us to choose the changes we wish to test), but not necessarily for actuarial purposes. ... clearly have great merit as a baseline for evaluating changes in medical treatment; however, it should not be considered as a replacement for the existing forecasting tool(s) at CMS, since their...