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Physicians work hard to provide care that delivers the best possible outcomes to their patients. Unfortunately, their efforts haven’t always been appropriately recognized.
I don’t mean that doctors are poorly compensated—although, like many workers, their salaries aren’t keeping up with inflation. The issue here is that they’re often incentivized to deliver more care rather than more impactful care.
Under the fee-for-service model that has governed care reimbursement in the U.S. for most of our country’s history, providers are paid per procedure or service provided. This means that the money is in volume, and many providers’ revenue streams are tuned to high-volume services: office visits, outpatient procedures, testing, etc.
Recent trends in healthcare’s public and private sectors suggest this is changing (if not as quickly as many physicians, patients, and activists would like). New tech, governmental intervention, and shifting patient and provider preferences are creating new opportunities for value-based care every day.
Keep reading to learn more about these trends.