Benefits of value based care for patients and populations

Value-based care is a simple and proactive concept of improving care for patients. With its core based on overall wellness and preventive treatments, value-based care improves healthcare outcomes and reduces costs.

What is value-based care?

Value-based care is simply the idea of improving quality and outcomes for patients. Reaching this goal is based on a set of changes in the ways a patient receives care. We’re looking to make healthcare proactive instead of reactive, preventing problems before they start. Overall wellness, quality of care, and preventive screenings all are key to bringing about better healthcare outcomes.

What changes for patients with value-based care?

The goal of value-based care is to standardize healthcare processes through best practices, as in any business. Mining of data and evidence can determine which processes work and which don’t. This forms a foundational “care pathway” to help get best results for patients.

Wellness and prevention are also stressed in value-based care. Prevention of health (through quitting smoking, dietary and lifestyle changes, exercise, etc.) reduces the need for expensive tests, procedures, and medications.

Your staying well cuts healthcare costs for everyone. For example, if you have a chronic condition such as diabetes, value-based care can help you avoid complications of the disease. Instead of going to several institutes to get care, you work with one integrated team that already knows you and your health background. This team, which may consist of your primary doctor, supporting healthcare professionals and nutritionists, would help you:

  • Keep your blood sugar under control.
  • Stay on a healthy diet.
  • Set up a realistic exercise program.
  • Deal with the emotional and psychological aspects of the disease.

How does value-based care reduce costs?

With the concept of value-based care, doctors and hospitals get paid based on outcomes, not on numbers of procedures done, patients seen, or how much they are charged. Rather than charging a patient for each individual test or service, payments are bundled – especially useful in more complex cases like joint replacements.

Electronic medical records for each patient eliminate repetitive and unnecessary tests and procedures. Teams of doctors and healthcare professionals communicate with one another through the help of care coordinators to treat patients with more efficiency and less wasted time and effort. Patients move through this integrated system more quickly.

The ideal result is fewer readmissions and less frequent hospitalizations and trips to the emergency room. Value-based care is a long-term goal. It’s a proactive concept to keep healthcare costs down, produce better healthcare outcomes and most importantly, improve your overall health and well being.

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Benefits of value based care for patients and populations

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Benefits of value based care for patients and populations

Benefits of value based care for patients and populations

Value-based care may be a healthcare buzzword, but there’s no denying the traditional care model is losing momentum. Patients and providers expect, not want, more.

The traditional model (fee-for-service care) incentivized providers based on quantity, but it isn’t working anymore. Healthcare consumers look for better quality from their providers with rising healthcare costs while providers contend with sicker patients and more expenses.

Value-based care is a growing model. McKinsey predicts nearly 65 million people in the United States will be covered under value-based health insurance plans by 2025 and in 2020, 40.9% of healthcare payments in the U.S. were comprised of the model. 

The benefits of value-based care not only address the current issues in healthcare but also adapt to changes in the future.

What is value-based care?

Value-based care focuses on reimbursements based on the quality of care delivery versus a fee for the service itself. While the model is meant to reward the providers for providing good care, it also helps lower costs, reduce readmissions, close gaps in care and improve population health.

In this blog, we’ll take a look at the benefits of value-based care.

Benefit #1: Value-based care lowers costs.

There’s no denying that patients and providers could save money on their healthcare costs. A JAMA study found that around 25% of healthcare spending by providers is waste and that a quarter of that spending could be saved through patient interventions. 

But more notably, patients are spending $12,530/person on healthcare costs annually and employers expect to pay more than $13,800 per employee in 2023. It’s no surprise that health spending accounts for 19.7% of the gross domestic product in the United States.

A reason value-based care exists is because of the government’s goal to improve patient care and access while also cutting costs. With both patients and providers looking to cut costs, providing quality service should be at the forefront to making it happen through value-based care.

Benefit #2: Value-based care reduces readmissions.

It’s in the best interest of hospitals to reduce readmissions based on legislation, but also because value-based care incentivizes a reduction in readmissions and improvement of health outcomes. 

Every patient wants the best healthcare experience possible and, no surprise, that shouldn’t involve returning to the hospital. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case, but there are instances where it could be prevented. If providers do their part to do their due diligence the first time around to provide quality care, it saves everyone time, energy and money.

Of course, patients aren’t off the hook and have to put in the work to get better, but at a minimum, providers and patients need to be on the same page about their care plan and commit to working together to make progress on health outcomes.

Benefit #3: Value-based care closes gaps in care.

Even under the best intentions, it is very easy for providers and patients to lose connection over time and create gaps in care.

In a PatientBond market research study, we asked healthcare consumers their level of agreement on the following statement: I will go to the doctor at the first sign of health concerns. While 42.5% of the general population strongly agree/agree with that statement, 35.8% disagree/strongly disagree. And some patients feel especially strongly one way or another based on their healthcare psychographic segment profile, derived from a consumer segmentation model that determines what motivates patients to act on their health based on beliefs and ideals.

For instance, Direction Takers are statistically more likely than any other segment to strongly agree/agree with the statement, but Priority Jugglers are the opposite being statistically more likely to disagree/strongly disagree with the statement.

I will go to the doctor at the first sign of health concerns

General Population

(n=5000)

Self

Achievers

(n=1032)

a

Balance Seekers

(n=775)

b

Priority Jugglers

(n=586)

c

Direction Takers

(n=743)

d

Willful Endurers

(n=1864)

e

Strongly agree/agree (Net)

42.5%

70.7%

bce

5.9%

c

2.7%

78.2%

abce

40.4%

bc

Disagree/strongly disagree (Net)

35.8% 

7.9%

d

73.9%

ade

81.7%

abde

5.2%

33.2%

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Note: Each psychographic segment/column is designated with a letter a - e. When the percentage of a segment with a health condition is statistically greater (95% confidence) than the percentage for other segments, the letter of the segment/column with the smaller segment percentage is listed.

This is important because while some providers might be able to reconnect with some patients because of their determination to stay on top of their issues, others may put off the issue to handle the daily stressors of life or they simply don’t care enough.

Value-based care encourages providers to keep that engagement going so that if any issues come up, they can close care gaps. Consistent communication that leverages psychographics can dramatically increase response rates.

Benefit #4: Value-based care improves population health.

Population health looks at the health and risk factors of a population by demographics, like age, race and gender, socioeconomics and health condition. This could also include psychographics since there are segments statistically more likely than others to get certain chronic conditions, like depression for Willful Endurers or diabetes for Direction Takers. For medically underserved populations, value-based care can be a game-changer in improving care.

While it’s every healthcare provider’s mission to improve care for all patients, there are certain populations that especially need a closer look at how their care is approached for chronic conditions, like maternal health for black mothers or Alzheimer's disease among people 65 and older. By approaching patient care proactively through a value-based care model and integrating it with personalized patient engagement solutions that promote patient activation, healthcare providers can work together with patients to tackle these issues head-on.  

The future of healthcare is changing, and the mindset on value among healthcare consumers is, too. That’s why PatientBond is thrilled to join UpFront Healthcare to continue to lead the future of personalized patient engagement and access. Learn more about the acquisition and the positive impact it has on healthcare consumers.


Topics: Psychographic Segmentation, Patient Engagement, Healthcare Consumerism, Reducing Readmission, Value-based Care, Reduce Hospital Readmissions, health outcomes, patient journey, gaps in care, population health management, digital health platform, Health, closing care gaps


Why is value important in healthcare?

Learning to improve value for patients provides satisfaction. This motivates doctors and their teams and also cuts costs. VBHC empowers doctors and their teams to do what they do best—provide excellent patient-value by using clinically relevant and evidence based insights.

What are the benefits of team based care?

Team-based care offers many potential advantages, including expanded access to care (more hours of coverage, shorter wait times); more effective and efficient delivery of additional services that are essential to high-quality care, such as patient education, behavioral health services, self-management support, and care ...

Why is value creation an important concept to health care organizations?

Value is created throughout the system through reducing the prevalence and incidence of disease. Only through managing the full continuum of health will value be created throughout the healthcare delivery system. Outcomes management ensures that the outcomes are the highest quality at a cost-effective price.

What is the concept of value

March 02, 2022 - Value-based care is a form of reimbursement that ties payments for care delivery to the quality of care provided and rewards providers for both efficiency and effectiveness.