In an NEJM Catalyst video, Harvard Health Care Policy Prof. Michael Chernew discusses strategies to control health-care costs. He notes that those costs have historically grown at 2 percentage points higher than personal income.

“That cannot happen indefinitely. We will have no clothes. We will have no food. We’ll have no shelter, but we’ll just be very healthy.”

“I do not believe that the payment system will drive us to success, necessarily, but I certainly think the payment system, if we’re not careful, can be an impediment to success. We need to design a payment system that will allow organizations that can find efficiencies, to have those incentives to create those efficiencies. And the notion is we share the savings. Why? Because if you won’t share the savings there will not be savings to share.”

NEJM says he suggests, in NEJM words, “building payment models like population-based payment, where the delivery system assumes accountability for the full amount of spending and individual clinical outcomes, and bundled payments, assuming accountability, for an episode of care, and allow the provider system to rearrange the resources they need to provide that service or care for that patient more efficiently and share some of the fiscal savings it generates.”

To see the video and read the text version, please hit this link.

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