Spotlighting Physician, Purchaser Collaboration to Improve Care Delivery and Quality

Through direct roundtable discussions between health care purchasers and physician practices, efforts have been made to align care provided in the community with the wants and needs of employees and patients, said Norman Chenven, MD, vice chairman of the Council of Accountable Physician Practices.

Transcript

The American Journal of Managed Care® (AJMC^®): Hello, I'm Matthew Gavidia. Today on the MJH Life Sciences’ Medical World News, The American Journal of Managed Care® is pleased to welcome back Dr Norman Chenven, vice chairman of the Council of Accountable Physician Practices, or CAPP, who will speak on a recent report by the CAPP and the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions (National Alliance) titled, “Aligning Interests: Opportunities for Purchasers and Physicians to Accelerate Care Delivery, Innovation & Value.”

Chenven: Let me start with just explaining who CAPP and the National Alliance are. CAPP is Council of Accountable Physician Practices, and it is a group of about 31 organizations, medical delivery systems that are physician directed.

It includes many of the name brand medical groups in the country, such as Mayo and Cleveland, as well as Austin Regional Clinic and we have developed ways of delivering care that are integrated. We've invested a lot in infrastructure to make sure that we can give high quality care at a very reasonable cost. The National Alliance is an organization that is concerned with finding the best arrangements for self-insured employers, that's typically mid-sized to large employers in cities across the country.

AJMC^®: Can you speak on what influenced the CAPP and the National Alliance to directly connect employers and health care purchasers with physicians, and what topics or challenges you were interested to see discussed by both parties?

Chenven: They purchase care on behalf of their employees and their employees dependents. CAPP or the CAPP groups deliver care, and at a certain point, we realized that we weren't talking to each other—that we're delivering something that they want, they're asking for something from us, but it's being passed through a number of middlemen, through consultants and brokers, as well as health plans, and there's no direct conversation.

So, we thought, let's short circuit that. Let's see what each other is actually thinking and not have someone interpreting what we're saying to each other. And it has resulted in meetings, roundtables around the country, at least 5 different cities around the country, with a number of employers, as well as a number of CAPP groups.

So, that's the basis—that's the reason we did it, we wanted to say are you getting what you want, tell us what you want, maybe we can adapt what we're doing in our community to what do you need for your employees.

I think it's been very exciting, very interesting as this process has gone on for about a year and a half. It's been slowed down a little bit by COVID-19, but I think we're starting to realize a lot of really aligned interests between us, the people we serve, and the organizations we serve.