Healthcare providers around the country are moving toward population health to meet the triple aim — better quality care, patient satisfaction and lower costs. But without a mandate, progress is slow, according to a Medcity report.
CMS will begin the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement model on April 1, mandating hospitals in certain markets provide bundled hip and knee replacements for Medicare beneficiaries. Most — 79 percent of healthcare organizations — report they were in at least one risk-based contract with a payer in the past, but still predominately function in the fee-for-service world.
The biggest barriers to population health include:
1. Issues with IT, tracking and management systems along with other internal systems
2. Treat of financial loss from moving to a new payment model
3. Providers not knowing when to make the transition
4. Changing organizational culture difficulties
5. Physicians who don't buy-in to the organization's changes
6. Employees without the appropriate skills and capabilities
7. No clear evidence population health models will succeed
8. No buy-in from executives
9. Lack of organizational leadership and accountability
10. Negative results with at-risk models in the past
11. No buy-in from the board of directors
As CMS progresses toward value-based payments, and private payers are moving in that direction as well, 97 percent of the survey respondents feel population health is "somewhat important" to their future; a little over half said it was critically important.