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Specialists are key partners for delivering value-based care, particularly for patients with chronic diseases. This involves the appropriate diagnosis of conditions, including rare diseases, stewardship of diagnostics and value-based prescribing for specialty medications.
Lawrence Kosinski, M.D., MBA, founder and chief medical officer of SonarMD, a tech-enabled care coordination solution for digestive health, notes the great majority of high per-capita cost of care comes from specialists’ orders.
“Right now, most specialty value-based care programs focus on procedure episodes like hip or knee surgery,” he says. “But specialists also care for patients with complex, chronic medical conditions, and this care accounts for $220 billion in healthcare spending annually — not including the fast-growing specialty pharma expense.”