How Should We Pay for Health Care?
Michael E. Porter and Robert S. Kaplan
Improving provider incentives and reimbursement must become a central component in health care reform. Payments need to align with the value delivered to patients: better health outcomes delivered at lower costs. Today, however, deeply‐flawed reimbursement approaches actively discourage providers from delivering value to their patients. In this paper the authors argue that reimbursement through bundled payments is the only approach that aligns providers, payers, and suppliers in a healthy competition to increase patient value. The authors describe the principles of value‐based bundled payments, how such bundles should be constructed, and why they believe this reimbursement method best aligns everyone's interests around value. They show how recent improvements in measuring patient's outcomes and the cost of care are overcoming the past barriers to wider adoption of bundled payments. They conclude by describing how bundled payments can transform competition in health care, and the longer‐term implications for providers, payers, employers, and health care delivery systems. Read More