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Value-based care has been on the horizon for years. Providers that were ready to leverage digital tools to deliver care remotely experienced success when the payment model finally took hold during the early days of the pandemic.
“When we look at the pandemic and how hospitals performed financially, it’s those hospitals that had already started to take on value-based payments that did pretty well during COVID-19, particularly the first six months of last year. And those hospitals that were working on fee-for-service or largely based on volume – the old-fashioned way – did really poorly,” said Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, Health Economist and founder of THINK-Health, a consulting firm based in the Philadelphia area.
To succeed under the financial model, which links payment to outcomes achieved, hospitals need to move away from the long-held practice of tying reimbursements to the delivery of individual services and, instead, effectively manage entire courses of treatment. As such, many providers are relying on virtual tools to deliver the best care, while also conserving resources and streamlining labor.