AHIMA’s Position
AHIMA supports the use of policy to promote innovative payment and care delivery models that leverage accurate, timely and complete health information, as well as technology in new and innovative ways. Health information (HI) professionals have extensive knowledge and expertise to contribute to policy discussions that support the shift towards value-based care. To support the advancement of innovative payment and care delivery models, AHIMA believes that public policy must:
Consider the needs of both patients and providers.
Policy must consider supporting the “triple aim” – improving the individual experience of care; improving the health of populations; and reducing the per capita costs of care for populations.
Promote the use of accurate, complete, and timely health information.
High levels of data quality and integrity are a necessary component of value-based care models. Policy should work to ensure that the data used in value-based care models apply relevant coding standards and guidelines. Policy should also encourage the leveraging of non-traditional datasets including social determinants of health data as part of new value-based care models.
Interoperable, electronic reporting for value-based care models requires investment in clinical infrastructure, sufficient staff expertise, and harmonized reporting and measurement standards. Modern technical standards and open application programming interfaces (APIs) are needed to enhance data sharing and improve automation of reporting requirements. Measurement standards that are incorporated into value-based care models must also be developed, tested, piloted, and deployed broadly as part of a transparent process. Technical solutions are also needed to allow for more accurate patient identification and patient attribution, as ongoing challenges related to patient identification and attribution can hinder both quality improvement and cost containment efforts.
Models must reflect how information flows through the healthcare system, the technical infrastructure that is needed, and the role HI professionals can play in helping to leverage accurate, complete, and timely information
for value-based care models. Models must prioritize patient care versus increasing administrative or compliance burden on patient and providers.
Policy must ensure during testing and design that both models and individual measures are not systematically biased. Models should also be designed, tested, and deployed in a transparent manner and account for the needs of a variety of communities. Policy should encourage meaningful participation across clinician type, specialty, and geography.
Encourage the development, testing, and deployment of new care models in an iterative manner.
New value-based care models should be sufficiently tested and piloted prior to widespread deployment and relevant findings should be made publicly available. In early phases, risk-bearing models should be deployed in a manner that allows for voluntary participation. Policy must also ensure that new value-based care models appropriately align incentives involved in risk bearing models to advance better integration of care without jeopardizing patient access to care.
Incorporate new technologies and modalities of care.
Innovative value-based care models should promote patient engagement and not arbitrarily limit both patients and
providers by geography or modality. Policy must encourage the incorporation of telehealth and remote patient monitoring, as part of new value-based care models provided that the technology is safe, effective, appropriate, secure, interoperable, and can be integrated into a provider’s clinical workflow. Policy should also account for workforce training needs to ensure members of the workforce are sufficiently trained to leverage new technical capabilities.
Prioritize privacy and security.
Sharing of health information across payers and providers as part of new payment and delivery models requires careful consideration of privacy issues, including ensuring that only the minimum necessary information is shared, and uses beyond the specific transaction are limited. Addressing privacy and security successfully involves leveraging both technical and operational solutions that support clear policies that are consistent across all actors.
Background
Healthcare has been in a constant state of reform over the past century. In recent decades, conversations around reforming the healthcare system have increasingly focused on “value-based care” as stakeholders have worked to reform the healthcare system so that it more closely reflects the “triple-aim.” The “triple aim” is a framework for the healthcare system that emphasizes improved patient experience, improved population health, and reduced per-capita
healthcare costs. As such, stakeholders across the healthcare system have emphasized the need to prioritize value-based, quality healthcare over a payment and care delivery system that bases reimbursement on the volume of visits or services provided. Value-based care can refer to a wide range of care delivery models, aimed at improving care quality for individuals and populations, while controlling healthcare costs.
For many providers and healthcare facilities, their participation in value-based care models are critical elements in strategic planning, with the desire to both improve the healthcare system and reap the incentives inherent in programs that tie reimbursement to performance. For payers, value-based care models represent a chance to control rising healthcare costs, while improving beneficiary satisfaction and health. Value-based care models also create opportunities to more closely tailor care to the needs of both individuals and populations by addressing issues associated with health equity and social determinants of health. In recent years, Congress has passed several key pieces of legislation aimed at transforming the healthcare system to one that emphasizes the use of technology and places a greater emphasis on value including: the Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act, the HITECH Act, the Affordable Care Act, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA), and the 21st Century Cures Act. These pieces of legislation and subsequent regulations have substantially realigned incentives for providers and clinicians across the healthcare landscape to participate in new payment and care delivery models that are aimed at improving quality of care and/or reducing costs while leveraging technology. In recent years, private payers have also increasingly moved towards participation in value-based care models.
Advancing value-based care models is likely to yield numerous benefits to stakeholders across the healthcare system. These benefits include:
As the healthcare delivery system continues to transition to a system that incentivizes value over volume, certain challenges and barriers must be addressed:
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