Value-based care is gaining traction in the ASC industry as CMS and payers see opportunities in bundled payments over traditional fee-for-service models.
Here are four ASC leader's thoughts on value-based care:
Andrew Kaplan, MD. Director of electrophysiology and clinical research at Southwest Cardiovascular Associates (Mesa, Ariz.): Physicians should focus on value-based care initiatives, orient toward collaborative relationships with patients, be driven by guideline-directed medical therapy and shift services to the outpatient environment through reliance on ASCs and office-based Centers of Excellence. Those that can capture technical revenue traditionally going to the hospitals will have the capital to offer broad-based services and attract patients and new providers into their practices.
Taizoon Baxamusa, MD. Orthopedic surgeon at the Illinois Bone & Joint Institute (Barrington): As CMS really pushes to reimburse value-based care rather than traditional fee for service, our focus has really been at reducing costs for a diagnostic episode. We are best able to control these costs through our relationships with freestanding ambulatory surgical centers and home health agencies. Reducing the regulatory burden of fear of Stark violations would streamline the provision of care rather than money spent on administrative tasks.
Oren Shill. President-elect of California Ambulatory Surgery Association's board of directors and group president of Surgical Care Affiliates: Physician specialists are looking to enhance sustainability of their practices and see a series of benefits from participating in an integrated care delivery system and value-based care models. That means that ASCs must work hard to build awareness of their benefits, attract physician specialists and nurture the connections to value-oriented primary care doctors and payers to reinforce siting of patient cases at ASCs. We are also making investments in talent acquisition, leadership programs and training for clinical and support teams to attract and retain top talent with compelling career growth opportunities
Shannon Yarrow. Senior vice president of managed care at Surgery Partners (Brentwood, Tenn.): As ASCs, we want to engage with those types of organizations that are taking risk in terms of bundled payments. We've seen some growth in this space. ... We're starting to see a lot of employer interest for the self-funded payers in the bundled payment arrangement. And that does put a little bit of risk on ASCs and physicians to make sure that they are giving high-quality care and selecting the appropriate patients for those bundles. But I do think that also leads to opportunities and more growth for volume opportunities, and so saving the health system money.