The shift towards value-based care is expected to continue despite uncertainty surrounding healthcare reform under the Trump administration. In a value-based model, physicians are compensated based on performance on standard measures of quality, efficiency, and patient outcomes.

 

Current value-based payment models need to generate more consistent results if they are going to live up to their hype, according to Jessica Farmer and Michael Hochman, MD, of the Keck School of Medicine.

 

In their article in MedPage Today, the authors contend that data backing up the benefits of value-based reimbursement plans so far have been "lacklustre". It's time for policymakers to focus their efforts on identifying and developing the traits that make successful programmes work, the authors said.

 

Aside from a handful of high-profile success stories, the authors see a mixed bag of evidence that value-based payment strategies improve patient outcomes. They admit part of the issue may be the range of programmes encompassed by the broad, value-based rubric and further, that demonstrating results may depend on finding the right metric.

 

Farmer and Hochman have identified a set of traits common among successful programmes:

 

  • Comprehensive programmes appear to work more effectively than simple ones, since they force organisations to focus on a wider variety of metrics.
  • Successful models engage clinicians, which the authors suggest is better done by setting incentives at an organisational level, rather than an individual level.
  • Markets with “a single dominant third-party payer” have tended to see more success than markets with a more complex mix of payers.

 

Source: Fierce Healthcare

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Value-based Payment,Trump administration,value-based care,patient outcome The shift towards value-based care is expected to continue despite uncertainty surrounding healthcare reform under the Trump administration.