Sarah Cevallos: Physicians Need More Data to Determine if 2-Sided Risk is Appropriate

Until more data is available, it’s difficult for a practice or physician group to make an accurate assessment of whether or not 2-sided risk is appropriate, said Sarah Cevallos, chief revenue cycle officer, Florida Cancer Specialists. Physicians would need to see clear metrics in order to know if they will be achievable.

Transcript (slightly modified)

What are your thoughts on physicians taking on 2-sided risk?

I think it’s a really complex question, and something that we have to think thoroughly through. I think a lot of the panelists and the audience as well made a very valid point that until a lot of the data is available it’s very difficult to make an accurate assessment of whether or not 2-sided risk is appropriate for a practice and a physician group to know whether or not they’ll be able to be successful and meet those metrics.

What incentives do you think might be necessary for physicians to want to take on 2-sided risk?

There would really have to be some pretty detailed, not as much guarantees but some really clear metrics so they know if they’re going to be achievable in order for the physicians to take 2-sided risk. I think a lot of those are surrounding making sure we’re all on the same page with accurately measuring quality and what that means to a patient. So some of those could be whether it’s financial incentives, whether it’s ensuring that we’re in compliance with certain measures that the physicians feels is really going to drive quality for the oncology patient, making sure that the totality of the patient is really looked upon versus just what’s happening in the clinic or the oncology office.