Valuing Value-Based Payment

By ANISH KOKA, MD The idea that payment should be linked to the value lies at the heart of most of the transactions we participate in on a daily basis. Yet, value based payment in healthcare has seemingly run into very rocky waters as of late.  It is at this precarious time that stakeholders representing large employers and other purchasers of health care’ took to the Harvard Business Review to write in defense of value based payment reform.  The authors pepper their article with cherry picked ‘successes’ of the value movement and urge the country to forge ahead on the current path.  The picture that comes to my mind hearing this is of the Titanic, forging ahead in dark waters, never mind the warning signs that abound. One of the authors of the paper – Leah Binder – is President and CEO of the Leapfrog Group – a nonprofit organization founded in 2000 dedicated to triggering ” giant leaps forward in the safety, quality and affordability of U.S. health care by using transparency to support informed health care decisions and promote high-value care”.  This is a laudable goal, but it is very much predicated on the ability to measure value.  A perusal of the Leapfrog group’s  homepage notes a 1000 people will die today of a preventable hospital error. The warning is explicit – choosing the hospital you go to could be the difference between life or death.  I have spent some time in the past about the remarkably w...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Value-Based Payment Source Type: blogs