The Market Is Moving Toward Full Risk Value-Based Care

The US healthcare market is leaning in the direction of Full Risk Value-Based Care. While the system is often characterized as a monolith; a massive, unwieldy machine (and as immovable objects go, it is a big one),  that big machine is trending steadily toward full risk value-based care.

 

The CMS recently reported that total spending reached “$4.1 trillion or $12,530 per person [in 2020]. As a share of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, health spending accounted for 19.7 percent…” That’s one out of five American dollars. And somehow, with all that money on the table, we still struggle to improve outcomes. (Source: CMS)

 

According to OECD.org, of the 38 member nations, The US spends more per-capita on healthcare than any other member nation. Also, our already lower-than-average life-expectancy took a higher-than-average hit from the pandemic. “The United States recorded the largest drop in life expectancy of any OECD country during the pandemic, falling from 78.9 in 2019 to 77.3 in 2020 – a decline of 1.6 years, compared to 0.6 years on average.” (Source: OECD)

 

With the US staring down these and myriad other daunting data points, this is an ideal time to chart a path forward, up, and out of the quagmire of fee-for-service stagnation. Thankfully, change is coming. As we recently posted in our blog, the total dollars of US healthcare spending are gradually shifting away from FFS, through Quality, and into risk models. 

 

CMS Innovation Center has stated that its Goals for 2030 are that all Medicare and the vast majority of Medicaid beneficiaries will be in a care relationship with accountability for quality and total cost of care by 2030. They aren’t specifically stating the “full risk model” as their 2030 goal, but that is the trend and a worthy goal.

 

Photo Credit: careyhealthsciences.com

And on the topic of trends, doctors increasingly favor full-risk payment models. While educating clinicians—without the right tools—can be a daunting task,  more and more clinicians are moving their small practices into full risk value-based care contracts. And while engagement is tricky without the right resources, doctors are consistently in agreement that the incentive alignment inherent within a full risk model is moving the business of medicine in a direction that validates the same noble reasons that compelled them into medical school: patient outcomes. And so long as doctors are supported with access to engaging and impactful HCC coding education, the transition to full risk will continue.

 

Why is Full Risk Value-Based Care growing, year over year?

As mentioned above, doctors practice medicine for one very simple reason: they want to help people. And while the past century has focused heavily on healing sick people, full risk value-based care models are empowering doctors to achieve an even nobler goal: to keep people healthy. And while pulling a sick patient back from the brink certainly has its thrills, real job satisfaction is found in keeping patients living stable, healthy lives – far away from the avoidable acute events that would have sent them to the ED.

 

Why do doctors care about Full Risk in Value-Based Care?

When the financial incentives align to incentivize better outcomes, or put another way, healthier patients, one product of that machine is a steady stream of happy doctors. The business goals agree with the doctors’ goals. And with the advent of better clinician HCC coding education tools, engagement is on the rise. And engaging with the tools to improve specificity and accuracy in diagnoses puts clinicians at the forefront of change. The more they engage, the more they learn; the more they learn, the better they diagnose; the better they diagnose, the more they can impact patient health before an avoidable acute health event occurs. Simply put, improving clinician engagement on HCC coding directly impacts every bottom line. ROI improves, ability to deploy more preventative measures improves, patient health improves and physician satisfaction inevitably rises.

 

What is slowing the transition to Full Risk in Value-Based Care?

Inevitably, there are blockers. As they say, no good deed goes unpunished. And it’s incredibly hard to move a massive machine – especially one that comprises one fifth of the nation’s gross domestic product. And frankly, much of the for-profit side of healthcare is resistant to a move away from fee-for-service. That model has grown the revenue streams of many massive corporations, whose shareholders are opposed to not-making-money. And whose leadership has a fiduciary responsibility to those shareholders to keep making money. And while Full Risk in Value-Based Care does show strong ROI, that revenue comes with strings—and risk—attached.

 

“There is activity in value-based care, but what we see as the biggest challenge is provider engagement… Providers need to understand how to be successful in value-based arrangements.”

 

— Dr. Andrei Gonzales, assistant vice president of value-based payments for Change Healthcare

 

The Department of Justice released an analysis of all False Claims Act settlements and judgments in the fiscal year 2021, and healthcare was the source of 5 out of 6 BILLION dollars in settlements and judgments. (Read more on our blog HERE and HERE) Medical fraud took the top line, but Medicare Advantage abuses like upcoding and over-coding—diagnosing conditions that were not in the chart—came in close behind. And these cash-grabs are only the ones that were caught – but they represent enough of a red flag that CMS, the DOJ, and the OSI are all looking very hard at recent changes in payment models. And a RADV audit is no longer the bogeyman exclusively haunting payors. In an effort to restore public trust and recoup misspent healthcare dollars, the Department of Justice and a host of other agency audits are increasing every year. And with whistleblowers rewarded up to 30% of the significant financial judgments, every employee stands to become a robber-baron just for speaking up. In effect, taking a massive cut of the ill-gotten gains.

 

Dr. Andrei Gonzales, assistant vice president of value-based payments for Change Healthcare said, “There is activity in value-based care, but what we see as the biggest challenge is provider engagement… Providers need to understand how to be successful in value-based arrangements.” (Source: ModernHealthcare)

 

Educating doctors is not an easy thing. Even Hippocrates himself required future doctors to vow to teach his children how to practice medicine if they cared to learn. Because with the ever-evolving fund of knowledge required just to stay in the stethoscope, the challenge is steep. And for modern providers, the ask is bigger than ever. But it does not have to be like Sysiphus, pushing his rock uphill every day, only to watch it roll back down again. Thankfully, with modern HCC education platforms like the DoctusTech app and integrated tools to drive engagement, today’s doctors have the potential to learn HCC coding faster and more deeply than ever before.  

 

And the faster physicians can learn HCC coding, the faster we will see the industry shift toward to Full Risk in Value-Based Care. And while it may not be a panacea for all that ails the US healthcare system, the transition toward Full Risk in Value-Based Care is the single best way to align incentives, ease the clinician workload, improve outcomes and decrease costs. 

 

Want to try teaching HCC coding to your doctors in a way that really works? No more zoom calls, no more email blasts – a truly engaging platform with proven results. Demo the DoctusTech app today – your doctors will thank you. The ROI from your risk contracts will thank you. Your patients will thank you. And you will help the US take a critical step toward Full Risk in Value-Based Care that actually works.


Book a demo with DoctusTech’s Co-founder today!

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