How accountable care measures are transforming our health care system

Ron Calhoun, Managing Director, National Health Care Practice Leader, Aon Risk Solutions
Ron Calhoun, Managing Director, National Health Care Practice Leader, Aon Risk Solutions

As accountable care programs are implemented, health care providers are going through significant financial, clinical, operational and strategic transformation. This has profound effects not only on health care providers, but also on those touched by health care delivery.
Payment transformation, re-admission penalties and demographic shifts are creating a perfect storm where health care providers have to be very skilled, says Ron Calhoun, managing director, national health care practice leader, at Aon Risk Solutions.
“Providers are going to have to get it right,” he says. “They’ve got to be clinically integrated, and a majority of them are not.”
Smart Business spoke with Calhoun about the risks health care providers are facing in this new environment.
What are the impacts of payment transformation and re-admission initiatives?
Numerous payment reform programs are moving providers toward payment for value and outcomes, as opposed to volume or service. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has increased emphasis on Medicare/Medicaid outcomes, which has in turn led to more commercial sector payment transformation. The fundamental question is how are health care providers going to clinically manage a population in a non-clinical environment with all of the quality measures by which they’re assessed?
In 2012, Medicare’s Hospital Re-admission Reduction Program started penalizing hospitals for re-admission of certain acute myocardial infarction (heart attack), heart failure and pneumonia patients. Reimbursement penalties are expected to be $280 million in year one, and to increase as penalties go up and the program expands.
With financial risks tied to reducing re-admissions, there is de-emphasis on acute care — short-term medical treatment — and emphasis on post-acute care. This puts more demand on non-physician clinicians like registered nurses. Hospitals also are managing discharged patients to reduce exposure by either pushing a patient into a post-acute setting earlier or managing that patient more aggressively. However, this has direct and vicarious liability implications.
How are demographic changes creating risk?
As Medicare and Medicaid grow, payment transformation models will proliferate, placing more emphasis on outcomes and value. Roughly 44.3 million Americans are on Medicaid, which will increase by 10 to 20 million, depending on how many state Medicaid programs expand. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder included an expansion of about 320,000 residents in his budget proposal. Also, 60 percent of the 169 million with employer-sponsored health care are ages 40 to 65, so the Medicare population will double to 88.6 million by 2035.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is bundling reimbursements with outcomes, which shifts liability to the provider. Health care providers need to adhere to established clinical protocols, narrow physician practice pattern variation, be highly communicative between specialties and with patient hand-offs, and have sophisticated clinical decision support capabilities within electronic medical record platforms. The tighter the clinical integration, the more confident the health care provider will be in participating in bundled or value-based reimbursement.
Why are family caregivers so important?
About 45 million Americans are unpaid, informal caregivers for those with dementia and/or the top 15 chronic conditions. In the next three to five years, care will systematically go into the home, increasing the demands on home health. Health care providers must connect to caregivers to drive outcomes, such as decreasing re-admissions or increasing medication compliance.
What’s the impact for consumers?
As health care providers move toward value-based or bundled reimbursement, health care networks may become narrower and include only the highly effective providers in a given geography. Consumers with higher deductible, more consumer-driven plans will demand that all providers demonstrate an ability to comply with quality measures. Group health plan providers are certainly going to demand quality, as well. Population management will only become more critical. Consumers and employers will want relevant medical data pushed beyond the hospital’s four walls and into their hands.
Ron Calhoun is a managing director, national health care practice leader, at Aon Risk Solutions. Reach him at (704) 343-4128 or [email protected].
 
Website: Aon’s health care reform microsite can help businesses navigate this complex issue. Visit www.aon.com/healthcarereform/ to learn more.
 
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