Inefficiencies in the way we provide medical services to patients in the United States have led to increasing costs while not necessarily leading to equivalent improvements in the outcomes of each sick and injured person being treated. Doctors and other medical professionals with an overriding goal to help others above all else may be dismayed when they consider how much emphasis is placed on finances rather than the healing arts.
Our government (or more specifically taxpayers) bears the brunt for a great deal of healthcare expenditures since so many people get coverage via Medicaid and Medicare. To curb costs and improve efficiency in healthcare delivery, there is a growing movement to emphasize value-based care and to do away with the volume-based care approach.
If your practice has not yet begun to get involved with value-based care, but you are interested in getting started now, you likely have questions and concerns that still need to be addressed. With that in mind, here are your top five value-based care questions — answered.
Embrace Value-Based Care with confidence. The financial incentives to be realized can be extraordinary.
1. Which Patients Should We Focus On?
Your first step should be to identify those patients that will benefit the most from a value-based care approach. Assign members of your team to analyze your current population and determine which ones require more engagement to manage their chronic diseases.
You should also discover the number of patients who have not been to their primary care provider in a year or more, noted a report by RevCycle Intelligence.
2. How Do We Track and Follow Up?
Tracking members of the patient population who have chronic and serious conditions is essential for figuring out where to best deploy your medical organization’s resources. Your best option may be to bring care managers into your organization, who can focus on building relationships with patients who need extensive tracking and follow-up visits.
3. What Effect Might Value-Based Care Have on Technological Innovation?
With added surveillance of chronic patients and those with multiple conditions to treat and manage simultaneously, we can expect that the medical industry will innovate to help us get more out of each patient encounter.
For example, genetic scanning and testing can lead to customized care, giving patients a personal treatment plan that gets them back on the path of health faster than when using a more generalized approach.
4. Is Boosting Patient Volume the Answer to Declining Revenues that Come with Increased Efficiency?
Improved efficiency in how we treat patients can lead to lower revenue. This means that medical organizations may need to act quickly to boost their patient pool. The addition of patients can help you make up the difference in lost revenue. Additional marketing and use of social media for outreach are common methods to attract more patients.
5. Do We Need Special Software?
The government provides financial incentives for medical organizations that demonstrate the steps they are taking to focus on value-based care. In order for you to benefit, you must make sure that you use only certified EHR software from a reputable provider.
When it comes to medical care, we’re all in this together. The improvements and efficiencies that medical organizations will realize by emphasizing a value-based approach over volume-based services should lead to a healthier population with more money to spend on things besides healthcare itself.
Key Takeaway
- Skyrocketing healthcare costs have motivated the U.S. government to promote a value-based care approach to medicine.
- Value-based care emphasizes giving patients what they truly need, compared to volume-based care that tends to rack up unnecessary tests.
- You must keep track of patients and follow up with them on a regular basis in order to participate in value-based care and get financial incentives.
- Medical organizations may find themselves promoting their services in the community to bring in more patients when revenue begins declining thanks to value-based care efficiencies.
- Make sure that you only use certified electronic health record or EHR software so you will be eligible for financial incentives.
