In  a Physicians Practice piece on practices involved in value-based initiatives, Scott Hewitt, vice president for value-based care contracting for UnitedHealthcare, says that most of the small- to medium-sized practices that his company  engages with in value-based care contracts are in what he calls its “metric-specific programs” that reward practices when they can show that they’re proactively managing the health of their patients.

Among his suggestions to practices:

• “Engage with payers to ensure that you have mutually aligned goals. ‘You can better care for members when you know how [you] can work together to achieve that,” Mr. Hewitt told the publication.

• “Get as much patient data as possible from payers.”

• “Implement processes within the practice to provide the highest level of care.”

• “Determine with payers where there may be inefficiencies in the delivery of care. ‘Everyone thinks they’re providing the most efficient care. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case.”‘

To read the whole piece, please hit this link.