Better health, costs: One practice’s value-based care outcomes

As U.S. health care shifts toward quality of care over quantity of services, physicians providing value-based care have been able to renew their focus on patients at the center of care. Find out how a practice in North Carolina successfully implemented and continued a value-based care model that both saved money and resulted in better health outcomes. Why value-based care? Grace Terrell, MD, chief executive officer and president of Cornerstone Health Care in North Carolina, authored a new module for the AMA’s STEPS Forward™ collection of practice improvement strategies to help physicians prepare their practices for the transition to value-based care. “As physicians, our primary focus should be on doing what’s in the best interest of our patients,” Dr. Terrell said. “And quite often the way that fee-for-service is set up, we’re not able to do that because it’s all centered on the visit or individual transaction between the doctor and the patient.” “If we actually have a system where the physician can once again focus on how we can create a relationship with the patient that is completely centered on what’s best for them,” she said, “then I think that it can bring the joy of medicine back for the practicing physician.” How the new model works At Cornerstone Health Care, Dr. Terrell and her colleagues decided to make the move to value-based care in 2012. Cornerstone transitioned from the traditional fee-for-service model to a patient-cente...
Source: AMA Wire - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Source Type: news