Our healthcare system is currently in experimentation mode–we are trying thousands of experiments to figure out how providers can be rewarded for “value instead of volume.” All the new terminology and reimbursement ideas accompanying these reforms can be hard to keep straight if you’re not steeped in this stuff every day, but guess what? There aren’t actually that many different ideas being tried; there are just a bunch of the same ideas being tried in various combinations. First I’ll describe those four basic ideas, and then I’ll show how they are the building blocks of all the main payment reform experiments out there.
Quality bonus: Give a provider more money when he hits performance targets on whatever quality metrics are important to the payer.
Utilization bonus: Utilization metrics and quality metrics are not usually separated, but they should be. Here’s the difference: improved performance on a quality metric increases spending; improved performance on a utilization metric decreases spending. They both improve quality, but they have different effects on total healthcare spending. So, for example, ED utilization rates and readmission rates would be considered utilization metrics. And childhood immunization rates and smoking cessation rates would also be considered utilization metrics because they tend to be cost saving. Insurers love giving providers bonuses on utilization metrics because they are stimulating providers to lower the amount being spent on healthcare.
Shared savings: If a provider can decrease spending for an episode of care (which could be defined as narrowly as all the care involved in performing a single surgery or as broadly as all the care a person needs for an entire year of chronic disease management), the insurer will share some of those savings with him.
Capitation: The amount a provider gets paid is prospectively determined and will not change regardless of how much or how little care that patient ends up receiving. Again, this could be defined narrowly, such as all the care involved in performing a single surgery (in which case it’s actually called a “bundled payment”), or it could be defined broadly, such as for all the care a person needs for an entire year.
By the way, did you notice that shared savings and capitation are almost the same thing? The only difference is who bears how much risk. In shared savings, the risk is shared, which means that if the costs of care come in lower than expected, the insurer gets some of the savings and the provider gets some of the savings. In capitation, the provider bears all the risk, which means that if the costs of care come in lower than expected, the provider gets all of the savings.
Okay, now that I have listed out those four ideas, take a look at the popular payment reforms of the day . . .
Medical Home
General idea:
- Give a primary-care provider a per member per month “care management fee” (in addition to what he normally gets paid) for providing additional services (such as care coordination with specialists, after-hours access to care, care management plans for complex patients, and more)
- Also give the primary-care provider bonuses when he meets cost and/or quality targets
Breaking down a medical home:
- A care management fee is actually a utilization bonus (because the net effect of the provider offering all those services is to avoid a lot of care down the road)
- A bonus for meeting quality targets is either a quality bonus or a utilization bonus depending on the specific metrics used
- A bonus for meeting cost targets is shared savings
Accountable Care Organization (ACO)
General idea:
- Give a group of providers bonuses when they lower the total cost of care of their patients (but the bonuses are contingent upon meeting quality targets).
Breaking down an ACO:
- A bonus for lowering the total cost of care is shared savings
- When a bonus is contingent upon meeting quality targets, that means it’s also a quality or utilization bonus (depending on the specific quality metrics used)
Pay for Performance (P4P)
General idea:
- Give a provider bonuses when she meets quality targets.
Breaking down P4P:
- This is either a quality or utilization bonus (depending on the specific quality metrics used), but it tends to be utilization bonuses because insurers especially like when providers decrease the amount of money they have to fork out
Bundled Payment/Episode-of-care Payment
General idea:
- Give a group of providers a single payment for an episode of care regardless of the services provided.
Breaking down bundled payment:
- A bundled payment is a narrow form of capitation
There you have it. They are all repetitions of the same ideas but combined in different ways.
Clear Thinking on Healthcare 