Lisa Ward, writing in Modern Healthcare, discusses the current (and sometimes hyped) “disruptive innovation” in primary care.
One example:
Retail clinics have been promoted as a potentially disruptive innovation in healthcare that could cut overall healthcare costs.
She notes that “the hope was that retail clinics could provide a cheaper model of healthcare to more people, especially lower income patients who often forgo preventive care and rely on emergency rooms.
“Yet that isn’t how it turned out. The potential of retail clinics hasn’t been fully realized. They are usually located in more affluent areas and their growth has plateaued. ”
But, more hopefully, she discusses
“{A} raft of new entrants like CareMore HealthPlan, Oak Street Health, IoraHealth and Aledade Inc., which, while using some of the same process-based methods championed by retail clinics, are partnering or employing primary care practitioners in a city or region. These firms are focused on coupling primary care with intensive preventive care to halt or reverse the development of chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
“In a world moving to value-based reimbursement, the strategy makes a lot of sense, especially because this new primary care model tends to use capitated payments, rather than traditional fee for service. They take responsibility for the financial cost of patients’ primary, specialty, acute, and post-acute care and the overall quality of clinical care with the understanding that they will be rewarded for providing better outcomes at a lower cost.
“Not surprisingly, large healthcare organizations, which are increasingly using capitated or bundled payments, are starting to pay close attention to the model.”
To read her entire article, please hit his link.
