Beyond ‘Repeal and Replace’: Physicians Renew The Call For Delivery System Improvement

The last few months have been an anxious time in health care policy with calls to repeal, replace, repair, and delay repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Daily, elected officials face angry constituents fearful of losing their coverage. What is clear is that voters want affordable, convenient, technologically enabled, high-quality medical care. We believe such care is possible, but only by leveraging the “doctor-patient” relationship and transforming how medical care is structured, measured, and reimbursed. We are physicians who have led two of the nation’s highest-performing health care systems: Kaiser Permanente and the Austin Regional Clinic. We base our recommendations on work we have done with other physician leaders of the nation’s largest multi-specialty medical groups through the Council of Accountable Physician Practices, where we are chair (Pearl) and vice-chair (Chenven). Policymakers who are focused predominantly on how to improve the health care system by providing health insurance coverage will fail unless they simultaneously focus on transforming and modifying the delivery system; otherwise, the cost of providing that care will erode any program they create, whether coverage is provided through private insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, or another method. For this reason, we encourage the new Administration and members of Congress to consult and rely on the nation’s physician leaders, in addition to health insurance executives, to help cha...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Featured Following the ACA Health Professionals Payment Policy Quality ACOs Bundled Payments EHRs value-based payment Source Type: blogs