From the opening keynote address to the closing awards presentation, the 2023 Crowe Healthcare Virtual Symposium, held May 9-10, was all about the healthcare revenue cycle. One hot industry topic ran through each of the symposium’s seven sessions: value-based care.
Results of one of the several attendee polls that Crowe took during the symposium show part of the reason why. When asked if they knew what value-based care is:
The other part of the reason lies in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ goal of having 100% of Medicare beneficiaries with traditional Medicare coverage enrolled in accountable care relationships with providers by the year 2030.
With more than a quarter of the attendees not knowing – or not sure they know – about something that they’ll have to master in less than seven years, it’s no wonder that value-based care came up in nearly every exchange held during the symposium sessions.
With that in mind, here are 10 thought-provoking insights on value-based care from this year’s symposium speakers, presenters, and specialists that are sure to propel revenue cycle leaders on their steep value-based care learning curve.
“This is what is happening with value-based care. This is what has to happen in order to be successful. One of the most successful ACOs [accountable care organizations] in Maryland said they were spending a million dollars a month on Uber rides. And you know what they found? They found that it was totally worth every dollar, right? Because you can spend a relatively little bit on prevention and then you get a lot of return, right? Because the total cost of care has gone down.”
– Gail Zahtz, Managing Partner, Zahtz Partners LLC
“Data. I always go back to the data. We need to understand what our data is to be able to move forward with value-based care.”
– Sandy Lood, Vice President, Revenue Cycle, Cottage Health
“The fee-for-service model – we’ve ridden that horse for a long time. We’ve talked for 30 years about it coming to an end. I do think, now, that it’s imminent. How do you migrate to that [value-based care] model quickly and be able to really look at 'How do we keep people healthy?'”
– Troy Spring, Vice President, Enterprise Revenue Cycle, Intermountain Health
“Fee-for-service is focused on an encounter. With value-based care, you’re focused on the patient holistically. You really have to look at every visit that you have with that patient – their health across the board. You can’t just focus on that one encounter.”
– Nancy Koors, CEO, UASI
“What’s been really interesting with value-based care is that hospitals, health systems, and providers are starting to see the benefits in these kinds of [value-based care] models in terms of sustainable and consistent revenue streams, which protect them from these kinds of massive shocks that we’ve seen with COVID, a potential recession, inflation. [Value-based care] gives them that kind of stability.”
– Andrew Sudimack, Economist – Healthcare and Insurance, U.S. Federal Government
“What we’re doing with value-based care is incentivizing not just the provider to make better decisions but the patient to make healthy decisions. We’re incentivizing providers who, in turn, must incentivize the patients. Are there things outside of a provider’s ability to really influence? Are we overburdening providers and basically putting them in a position where they’re now responsible for even more?”
– Matt Dobias, Vice President, Congressional Affairs, America's Physician Groups
“We actually have arrangements with our providers across the entire risk spectrum of value-based care models. Our providers come in all shapes and sizes, and they all have different abilities. We like to meet them where they are and then continue working with them up the [value-based care] spectrum.”
– Krishna Ramachandran, Divisional Senior Vice President, Health Care Delivery, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois
“One thing that I find difficult in this space is that every payor has its own value-based care metrics. To work with seven different sets of metrics that aren’t aligned is difficult. If there was standardization in this space from a provider perspective – one set of metrics, one set of measurements – there would be less friction for providers moving down that [value-based care] path.”
– Philip Boyce, Senior Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer, Baptist Health Jacksonville
“Be cautious about investing in advanced data analytics right away. Start small with things like basic disease registries and care coordination resources. Then try and optimize your revenue around those win-win-win sorts of situations.”
– Dr. Alvia Siddiqi, Chief Medical Officer, Advocate Aurora Health
“You have to be passionate about eliminating low-value care and providing the right care at the right time. If a patient goes to the right physician, the right physician will take the time and sit down and say to the patient, ‘Seven tests are not really needed. But these three tests are perfect for you. Those other four tests are not going to help you. They’re not going to change anything with your health, and they’ll probably just cost you more money.’”
– Dr. Pranjal Shah, Vice President, Population Health, Advocate Aurora Health
If revenue cycle leaders are not dealing with issues in these 10 value-based care insights now, they likely will be dealing with them within the next decade. The time to prepare is now.
For more insights on value-based care from the 2023 Crowe Healthcare Virtual Symposium, please visit our Virtual Symposium event summary to find session summaries, links to on-demand session recordings, important numbers to remember, and more.
We also encourage you to attend this year’s Crowe Healthcare Summit to be held Sept. 18-21, 2023, in Nashville, Tennessee, at the Renaissance Nashville Hotel and virtually. You’ll pick up even more advice on how to thrive in the world of value-based care.
Finally, thanks to the nearly 700 revenue cycle leaders from leading healthcare organizations across the country who attended this year’s Virtual Symposium. We hope to see you at the fourth annual Crowe Healthcare Virtual Symposium set for March 13, 2024.
