Payers, Providers Differ in Value Based Care, Health IT Opinions
Payers see value based care as a fixture in US healthcare, but progress is stymied by providers different views on adopting health information technology, such as EHRs.
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By - Payers see the move towards value-based care as a permanent fixture in the nation’s healthcare delivery system, with 82 percent of organizations responding to a Quest Diagnostics and Inovalon survey expecting it to continue despite any national healthcare regulation changes.
This move from a fee-for-service based system to an integrated value-based delivery system is far from complete, the survey exposed a gap between the outlooks of health payer executives and providers on how well those VBC goals are being achieved.
“The goal of our annual study is to gauge whether physicians and health plan executives are aligned in their perceptions and efforts regarding the transition to value-based care,” said David Freeman, general manager, Information Ventures, Quest Diagnostics.
“We’ve documented progress over the past year, notably with tools available to aid the transition, but work clearly remains. Extending the capabilities of existing technologies, most notably EHRs, and shared HIT investments by health plans and providers may speed physician adoption of value-based care.”
From a payer perspective, the technology to successfully implement value-based care is already available, with 53 percent of health payer executives saying physicians have the tools they need, such as electronic health records (EHRs). Only 43 percent of physicians agreed with that assessment.
Payers further championed the effectiveness of EHRs, with 75 percent believing they supplied providers with everything needed to streamline care, However, only just over half of providers surveyed agreed to that.
Further debunking the rosy view of EHRs by payers, over 70 percent of physicians reported they still do not see a clear link between EHRs and patient outcomes.
But the future of EHRs is not dead. Seventy-one percent of providers said they are open to adopting EHRs if they provided more actionable information, such as performance or quality data that related to specific patients.
To accelerate the adoption of value-based care, 85 percent of payers believe that HIT co-investment with providers is necessary. Previous investments in HIT and EHR technology has led to improvements in the value and quality of healthcare according to 77 percent of payers asked.
The progress to integrate value-based care into the healthcare arena to date exposed a substantial gap between the beliefs of payers and providers, with 70 percent of insurers stating that more integration had been made since 2016, and only 47 percent of providers agreeing to that assertion.
“Our study supports the widely-accepted notion that data and technology are critical to the success of value-based care. But is also indicates that more needs to be done to make data actionable, accessible and patient-specific, particularly for physicians,” said L. Patrick James, MD, chief clinical officer for health plans and policy, medical affairs at Quest Diagnostics.
