Ascension, alongside several other U.S. healthcare leaders, is part of a private-sector alliance dedicated to accelerating the transformation of the U.S. healthcare system. Its goal is to advance value-based business and clinical models designed to improve outcomes and lower costs.
The Health Care Transformation Task Force, whose members include six of the nation’s top 15 health systems, including Ascension, and four of the top 25 health insurers, today challenged other providers and payers to join in its collective aspiration from volume-based to value-based care. The coalition is calling for the industry to put 75 percent of their business into value-based arrangements that focus on the Triple Aim of better health, better care and lower costs by 2020.
“The Task Force’s deep expertise and leadership brings the necessary stakeholders together to drive lasting healthcare transformation, and we join them in this effort,” said Patricia Maryland, Dr.PH, President of Healthcare Operations and Chief Operating Officer of Ascension Health, the healthcare delivery subsidiary of Ascension.
Earlier this week Dr. Maryland was among nearly two dozen leading healthcare representatives who accompanied U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Mathews Burwell as she announced that Medicare would shift 50 percent of its provider payments into alternative payment arrangements such as accountable care organizations (ACOs) or bundled payments by 2018.
Together, the two announcements signal that the public and private sector are aligning around a new trajectory for healthcare payments that moves away from fee-for-service and into alternative payment models.
“As the largest non-profit health system in the U.S. and the world’s largest Catholic health system, Ascension recognizes the need to replace the current volume-based, disparate models with clinically integrated systems that provide person-centered care, especially for those who are poor and most vulnerable,” Dr. Maryland said.
The HHS “Better.Smarter.Healthier” model will rely on alternative payment models that tie Medicare payments to quality or value through involvement in programs such as Hospital Value Based Purchasing and Hospital Readmissions Reduction Programs. The effort aligns with Ascension’s quadruple aim of delivering high-quality care and better patient and provider experiences at a lower overall cost of care.“Whether you are a patient, a provider, a business, a health plan, or a taxpayer, it is in our common interest to build a healthcare system that delivers better care, spends healthcare dollars more wisely and results in healthier people,” Burwell said. “We believe these goals can drive transformative change, help us manage and track progress, and create accountability for measurable improvement.”
The Task Force defines value-based payment arrangements as those that successfully incentivize and hold providers accountable for the total cost, patient experience and quality of care for a population of patients, either across an entire population over the course of a year or during a defined episode that spans multiple sites of care. The group has released its first set of recommendations and will meet again on February 10 in Washington, D.C., to discuss initial priorities such as improving the ACO model, developing a common bundled payment framework and improving care for high-cost patients.
