The Next Stage of Value-Based Care

Value-Based healthcare has made the traditional volume-based healthcare obsolete now. Volume-based healthcare charged a fee for the service, but value-based care charges a fee for the value. Both concepts may seem or feel similar, but the differences between the two theories have made patients prefer value-based care now.

What Is Next-Stage Value-Based Care?

Charging money from patients for the value of the offered service refers to enhancing patient outcomes, satisfaction and safety. The healthcare sector needs several factors to define the value of the offered service. Many leading healthcare providers adhere to the STEEEP approach. STEEEP (safe, timely, effective, efficient, equitable and patient-centered) has it all. The offered service has to be safe, which is perhaps the prime factor that most of the patients care about now. Patient-centered healthcare is also as equally important as safety; the patient is the client and the savior of the healthcare sector. Better patient outcomes, results from these efficient and up-to-date concepts. 

Differences Between the Two Concepts

Value-based healthcare is becoming the trend in developed countries, and volume-based care is still the choice of developing countries. 

Volume-Based Care

• Also known as fee-for-service.
• Healthcare providers didn’t focus much on improving quality.
• Achieving high-profit margins was the measure of defining success.

Value-Based Care

• Also known as at-risk contracting, accountable care, and population health management.
• Improve service quality and reduce operational costs.
• Patients receive high-quality services, and healthcare providers make bigger profits through high patient satisfaction and by reducing operational costs.

Patients demand quality over quantity now. This requirement of patients is, in a way, a challenge to healthcare providers. Ignoring the transition (from volume-based to value-based) can even result in losing the position in the healthcare sector. More and more patients turn towards healthcare providers that have implemented the value-based concept, quarantining the service providers that still adhere to the less-productive volume-based care model.

Challenges to Overcome

The transition from one model to another is not straightforward. The value-based payment system is still new for many healthcare providers. The challenges to overcome include:

• Identifying quality indicators that meet patients’ expectations.
• Evaluating current resources and modifying those resources to match with the new concept.
• Training the staff to perform better through the value-based payment system.
• Cutting operational costs and maintaining high service standards at the same time.
• Creating a robust plan to make the necessary change.

The time needed for completing the change is also a challenge to win. Modifying the entire system of a large-scale hospital and implementing next-stage value-based healthcare can take years. Loyal patients may turn towards other healthcare providers that have already implemented value-based care if the transition takes years to happen.

The Next Stage of Value-Based Healthcare

It is apparent that a considerable number of healthcare leaders now focus on the necessary change, from volume-based care to value-based care. However, healthcare providers need a long-term vision that sustains the change for the next few decades. What if patients prefer a different model after ten years? Then, big money invested in the change soon becomes a big waste.

The perfect value-based care refers to:

1) A robust value-based healthcare concept that meets patients’ requirements. For example, a healthcare provider may define value-based as the expertise of their doctors, well-performed surgeries, or improved medical lab results. Patients may have different demands or opinions. They may give top priority to other factors, such as length of waiting lists, customer care and the staff of healthcare providers being nice to them. The healthcare provider that balances all of it will thrive for the next few decades. But others who fail to satisfy patients will lose their grounds.

2) Offering a satisfactory service makes more and more patients choose you as their healthcare provider. However, improving the service quality is one of the prime elements of this new concept. Improving service quality should happen with cost-cutting as well. The healthcare provider can’t survive for longer without making profits. Investing money in new, advanced healthcare IT solutions is a highly beneficial choice here. For example, next-gen healthcare solutions by CSI completely automates healthcare sector operations, and this automation will save millions of dollars and years of time for healthcare providers in the long run.

3) Affordable medication for common life-threatening diseases is one of the prime requirements to fulfill by the healthcare sector. In addition to affordable medication, the healthcare sector has to invent treatments for the so-called incurable health conditions. For example, millions of people struggle with various types of cancers today, but the healthcare sector routinely says, “there’s no one cure for cancer.” Hundreds of diseases still don’t have proper treatment. The patients and their families spend thousands of dollars on less-effective or experimental cancer treatments, but the patient dies within a few years. Next-gen value-based healthcare should be affordable to everyone, especially if the treatments are still experimental and if there is a potential risk to the patient when going through with it.

The Role of Healthcare IT Leaders

The healthcare sector can’t make necessary changes without the support of IT experts. Advanced healthcare solutions invented by IT experts have refined the healthcare system to the next stage by now. Nevertheless, there will always be the need for new solutions that further modifies the healthcare sector. And that is why CSI continuously works on inventing new solutions that enhance patient experience and try to raise the overall healthcare sector to the next level.

Closing Thoughts

Value-based healthcare is the current expectation of patients in today’s world. It’s a big change for healthcare providers, but the change is necessary. It is the responsibility of everyone involved in the healthcare sector to get together, and to come up with the best solutions to overcome these challenges.