Future Now
The IFTF Blog
Health CEOs for Health Reform
Health CEOs for Health Reform (HC4HR) recently released a report entitled, Realigning U.S. Health Care Incentives to Better Serve Patients and Taxpayers. HC4HR is part of the Health Policy Program at the New America Foundation. Its members include the CEOs of Group Health Cooperative; Blue Shield of California; Catholic Healthcare West; Global Human Health, Merck & Co. Inc.; Ascension Health; and several health care providers.
According to the Health Policy Program website, three principle guide the members of HC4HR:
- Health reform is an urgent priority for our nation and should not be postponed.
- Meaningful health reform entails both quality, affordable health coverage for all and delivery system reform. This will require all stakeholders to move away from "business as usual."
- A more sustainable health system will require all health care stakeholders to offer and accept changes to their business models as part of a catalytic package that will better serve everyone.
I am particularly intrigued by how principle #3 will play out over time.
The report contains detailed recommendations for moving away from
fee-for-service medicine and refocusing health care delivery on the
patient. One of the recommendations included is "Implement bundled payment structures," which sounds an awful lot like one of the forecasts we presented at our recent Health and Health Care 2020 Conference.
The report summary offers:
Our Vision for Health System Reform:
Health care reform must make quality health care and health
insurance affordable and accessible to all. Yet meaningful health care reform must also make our health delivery system sustainable for families, employers, providers, and governments. As health care leaders who operate in our current system, we firmly believe that upwards of 30 percent of the resources spent on health care in the United States are a result of too few efforts to coordinate care and not enough attention to quality. We must achieve higher value for our health care dollar to make affordable coverage and high-quality care available for all, including our most vulnerable, for years to come.
We will not control health care costs until we create clear incentives for providers – the people who deliver care – to focus on quality and efficiency.
The full report and a two-page summary are available here.