Rani Khetarpal Discusses Approaches by New Century Health to Manage Risk and Cost of Care

Through the risk-based, capitated model it has implemented, New Century Health promote its ability to control drug costs for without jeopardizing care for the patient, said Rani Khetarpal, MBA, vice president of Oncology Value-Based Partnerships at New Century Health.

Transcript

How does the risk-based, capitated model implemented by New Century Health assist their relationships with payers and providers in promoting value-based oncology care?

Just by sheer definition of capitated risk means that there is an end point and a threshold we have to stay under in terms of total cost of care for drugs. So, drugs being the biggest bucket and the one part where I think there’s a big debate is “Can we actually control the cost of drugs by being the owner of that category?” Just by sheer definition, we’re actually providing value to that biggest bucket of cost for any value-based care model. So whether it’s the payer or the provider, we’re actually giving that the ability to control drug costs without actually jeopardizing any sort of outcomes for the patient. That’s the dilemma we’ve actually been able to solve for the payer as well as the provider.

A paper appearing in JAMA Oncology calls for evaluating success in the Oncology Care Model based on adherence to clinical pathways. What do you think of this approach?

We’re actually aligned with that. I think that is the future of how you can actually manage drug costs and keep accountability with still being able to maintain the ability to prescribe products as needed for the patient. It’s all about going back to giving the right drug to the right patient at the right time and I think pathways pretty much take the guesswork out of that, which is great. I believe the article mentioned about an 80% adherence metric, which is about standard. Most pathways’ adherence [rates] rest between 80-85%, which is what we see as well. In fact, it’s one of the things we’re advocating for—really paying attention to the adherence metric. It’s not enough to have pathways; you have to have accountability with those pathways to make them meaningful, and to have a meaningful outcome from the use of pathways. So, putting an adherence metric around that, I think, is the right way to go. So, absolutely aligned and agree with what the authors of that article have put forth.