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While value-based care adoption has accelerated in the healthcare industry, the alternative care delivery and payment model is still lacking in the pediatric setting. The current healthcare infrastructure does not support the resources needed to successfully implement this model for kids, according to Rachel Thornton, MD, vice president and chief health equity officer at Nemours Children’s Health.
“So much of pediatric healthcare is about preventing future harms that may require more investment in the short term to achieve those optimal long-term outcomes,” Thornton told RevCycleIntelligence.
“That may be one of those places where the current model—the way it’s operationalized from a cost-benefit standpoint or an efficiency standpoint—doesn’t provide the latitude needed to make those early investments in children that ultimately produce the healthier population in the future that is going to cost the healthcare system less.”