The murder of a United Healthcare executive has intensified to America’s broken healthcare system. Unfortunately, too many opportunists are using this tragedy to push a tired, failed agenda – value-based care and its corollary, Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). While value-based care sounds nice, it has failed to lower costs or improve the quality of care.
However, it is very profitable for insurers, large health systems, and the consultants who serve them. In the meantime, things just get worse for patients and all of us who pay for the mess. There is no question that .
We pay too much, more even than neighboring high-priced states. Despite that, patients here experience delays, denials, shortages, and disparities in care. Many believe that , but they are wrong.
Like other fads, value-based care is a slogan that is but rarely adhered to. It has for insurers and big health systems, without controlling costs or improving the quality of care. Even worse, the corruption of the concept diverts us from real, proven solutions.
The idea behind value-based care is to lower costs by paying for better quality and lowering prices. ACOs are the huge health systems that are paid based on value-based care. Of course, everyone agrees with the premise.
But in the real world, value-based care has been interpreted as giving ACOs incentives to lower costs while monitoring only a very narrow set of quality measures. , providers love value-based care because it is “a license to pick up.