Value Based Care - Healthcare Reform without Single Payer or the ACA

[whell]

Value-base care (VBC) holds great promise for transforming the health-care system. Through payment reform and enhanced care coordination, VBC aims to deliver lower cost, improved quality and a better patient experience. Like all new solutions, this will not happen overnight. It is likely that local results will be highly variable as health-care providers experiment with different approaches to care transformation. Employers should talk with their current health plan provider to understand what their employees are experiencing today and what future options exist to fully leverage the VBC opportunity.

https://www.mercer.com/content/dam/m...hBPT0ifQ%3D%3D

I've referred to VBC models previously in posts regarding health care reform. Here's a document that explains it pretty well in non-wonk language. The challenges to the viability of the VBC model:

- single payer, as exemplified by both the failed Colorado and failing CA single payer legislation. These approaches - similar to the ACA - preserved everything that's wrong with the payment incentives and outcomes in our current health system.

- "Medicine on demand" - meaning access to whatever "brick and mortar based" care the consumer wants whenever the consumer wants it. The emergence of "telemedicine" should help with this, but state legislation and changes to medical licensing requirements are somewhat slow to change in response to this new model of health care delivery.

We don't need a "big government" solution to the cost, access and quality issues in our health system. We need more VBC.