Suzanne Delbanco, PhD, MPH, executive director of Catalyst for Payment Reform, explains how her organization is helping employers better understand accountable care organizations (ACOs) and judge how the ACO model might work with their population.
Suzanne Delbanco, PhD, MPH, executive director of Catalyst for Payment Reform, explains how her organization is helping employers better understand accountable care organizations (ACOs) and judge how the ACO model might work with their population.
Transcript
Catalyst for Payment Reform recently tried to measure the prevalence of ACOs. What did you find and what challenges did you run into?
For a project that we have called, Scorecard 2.0, where we’re trying to measure how much payment reform there is, what type, and what changes that’s lead to in the healthcare system. We wanted to measure the prevalence of ACOs, and we found that it was virtually impossible to do. We consulted all the leading experts in the country who have been trying to do this, because there’s not one definition of an ACO. So, even when we tried to come up with ideas to test providers who come together with responsibility for a given population of patients supported by an alternative payment model, there were challenges to that definition. Unfortunately, for now, we haven’t found a very good way to track ACOS.
Catalyst for Payment Reform also created a toolkit for employers on ACO arrangements. What does the toolkit include and how can employers use it?
Employers were feeling frustrated by the lack of transparency that they had into their health plan’s ACO arrangements. Health plans are touting how many ACO contracts they have and sharing some results, but they felt cherry picked and not comprehensive or as meaningful as employers wanted those results to be. They want to make decisions whether or not they should back this approach and seek it proactively for their population members.
So, we pulled employers together who were feeling this frustration and worked over a year to come up with the kinds of information they would want to know from their health plans, and then, we turned that into a standard template report that employers can ask their health plans to use in sharing results of their ACO arrangements. The hope is that employers will be able to better judge how effective this movement is, work with the health plan on ACOs that are not so effective to try to help it improve, or maybe move on to something else, and ultimately have a better understanding of how well the ACO model might work for their population over time.
SABCS 2023 Sessions Touch on "Every Aspect of Breast Cancer"
December 4th 2023The 46th annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium will take place December 5-9, with new and experienced attendees able to choose and learn from a schedule overflowing with the latest developments in breast cancer science and research.
Read More
Oncology Onward: A Conversation With Thyme Care CEO and Cofounder Robin Shah
October 2nd 2023Robin Shah, CEO of Thyme Care, which he founded in 2020 with Bobby Green, MD, president and chief medical officer, joins hosts Emeline Aviki, MD, MBA, and Stephen Schleicher, MD, MBA, to discuss his evolution as an entrepreneur in oncology care innovation and his goal of positively changing how patients experience the cancer system.
Listen
Nathan Walcker Discusses Value-Based Oncology Care Initiatives at FCS
September 8th 2023Nathan Walcker, CEO at Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute (FCS), highlights some of the recent partnerships and initiatives at FCS to improve community-based oncology care from a value-based perspective.
Listen
Evaluating Label Warnings, Switching Rates in Patients With Psoriasis Initiating New Treatment
November 9th 2023Posters presented at the 2023 Fall Clinical Dermatology Conference evaluated how label warnings may affect new treatment initiation and real-word switching patterns for patients starting risankizumab.
Read More
Innovation in Value-Based Care Requires More Data, Patient-Centered Thinking
November 9th 2023In a panel discussion at the 2023 Patient-Centered Oncology Care® meeting held in Nashville, Tennessee, experts discussed the Enhancing Oncology Model and themes in the movement toward value-based care in oncology.
Read More