This October, RCxRules had the privilege of attending the Value-Based Care Summit in Boston. While the term ‘Value-Based Care’ encompasses many different concepts and approaches to care, the overarching goal of the conference was for leading healthcare organizations to come together and share ways in which they are transitioning from the traditional fee-for-service model to one in which higher quality care is delivered at a lower cost.
There were many excellent speakers and panelists throughout the three days. One that stood out was Peter Markell, CFO and treasurer of Partners HealthCare. Peter noted the advantages and disadvantages of being a very large health system in the value-based care world. A few advantages mentioned were payer/vendor contracting leverage and integrated/holistic data sets for patient populations. On the other hand, operating the largest and best equipped hospitals in a geographic region is a challenge. Caring for the sickest/most expensive patients can be difficult to manage and adjusting policies or changing direction on an issue is difficult with so many interested parties needing to reach a consensus before a final decision can be made. Peter expects the trend of healthcare mergers to continue but believes that the ideal scenario for a successful transition into a value-based future is for each geographical region to have three or four competing health systems.
Every organization at this conference considered the transition to Value-Based care a ‘work in progress.’ Nobody has a silver bullet, and one speaker estimated that we are on a ‘40-year journey’ as an industry.
