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News Clips
American Medical Association: (9/27) – This article offers advice to health systems considering value-based contracts from Dr. Philip M. Oravetz, chief population health officer at Ochsner Health. Dr Oravetz highlights the importance of a “quadruple aim” of value: improving population health to improve quality; elevating the patient experience of care; turning FFS into fee-for-value; and providing well-being and caring for caregivers. He also recommends utilizing data to improve quality, implementing a platform outside of an electronic health record (EHR) for population-based care, and integrating behavioral health resources, social workers, and psychologists into its primary care practices.
RevCycle Intelligence: (9/26) – Even as healthcare providers have operated in an unstable industry for the past few years and health care practices have been experiencing high rates of physician burnout since the pandemic hit, ACO programs have continued to achieve shared savings and promote the shift to value-based care. The transition from FFS to value-based care is a clear path to help alleviate the tensions that create physician burnout by putting more emphasis on coordinated and preventive care, allowing physicians to drive higher quality and connect with their patients on a more personal level.
Politico: (9/26) – This article highlights four consequential trends that will affect health care’s future and their potential benefits and downsides: at-home care, value-based care, primary care, and artificial intelligence. The author highlights that while value-based care encourages routine primary and preventive care, adoption is slow because of the expense to upgrade computer systems to collect patient data, shifting rules and incentives on how providers are paid and reluctance to move from a simple payment model to one that presents more financial risk. Primary care disruption has the potential to benefit patients, although the Federal Trade Commission has concerns about the power big firms are accumulating, and expanded telehealth could create fraud risks.
MedCity News: (9/25) – Aledade said that its value-based care network has helped save the U.S. healthcare system save more than $1.2 billion over the past eight years. Over 65 percent of practices in the network are located in areas that have been federally designated as having a shortage of primary care health professionals. Dr. Lee Fleischer, a primary care physician at an ACO that works with Aledade, testified that being a part of the network has yielded significant shared savings that have led to better care outcomes, such as lower re-hospitalization rates.
RevCycle Intelligence: (9/22) – A recent study from the Physician-Led Healthcare of America (PHA) found that physician-led hospitals improve care quality and lower patient costs by driving market competition. In 2020, only 4 percent of areas with physician-led hospitals were classified as very highly concentrated compared to 13 percent without physician-led hospitals. Further, almost 60 percent of physician-led hospitals had lower Medicare costs per beneficiary than the national median hospital in 2022, compared to 51 percent of all hospitals, generating $217 million in annual cost savings for Medicare. Physician-led hospitals also received higher patient experience ratings on the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Survey (HCAHPS), indicating better care quality.
Washington Monthly: (9/21) – This article highlights Big Med, a book by David Dranove and Lawton R. Burns, which offers an exhaustive analysis of the consolidation of U.S. hospitals and the effect it has had on both the cost and quality of health care. While Big Med offers few solutions, the author of this article notes that current dynamics, including labor shortages and the rising cost of labor, has led some hospitals to become open to considering a different model of payment and states that moving away from FFS and paying hospitals a “global budget” to care for patients would encourage greater efficiency and better care.
Health Leaders: (9/21) – This article answers questions around managing value-based care in a discussion with LaVonna Bowman, Director of Product Innovation at Inovalon. Ms. Bowman notes the importance of clearly defined value-based care contract goals, tracking engagement efforts toward meeting goals, and technology and data to measure performance and create transparency between health plans and physicians.
RevCycle Intelligence: (9/21) – This article highlights a new Families USA paper which states that high hospital prices are “bleeding Americans dry” as these organizations become more corporatized and put profits over patients. The report calls for reforms to create a more competitive health care industry to make care more affordable and recommends establishing a hospital global budget payment model and cost containment commissions so hospitals are held accountable for cutting costs and improving population health outcomes.
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