As the American health care system transitions from a system geared toward patient volume to one more focused on keeping patients healthy and out of the hospital, health care providers face a dilemma—how to keep an adequate revenue stream, according to Bonnie Blanchfield, assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
In a December 23, 2019 Boston Globe op-ed, Blanchfield wrote that during this long transition, providers are caught in a money-losing situation. For value-based care to be successful, they must invest in nontraditional services such as transportation, nutritional assistance, and housing, which are not paid for under current reimbursement models but have been shown to benefit patients. One possible solution would be to pay providers for the value of care they provide rather than volume, Blanchfield wrote. She also suggested increased collaboration between those who pay for health care—employers and insurers—and those who provide it, so that there’s more shared accountability for providing low-cost, quality care.
Read the Boston Globe op-ed: The future of health care for patients — and providers — is value, not volume