In her August 14th 2016 interview with the LA Times regarding the ACA and value-based reimbursement, HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell stated, …”and medical providers want this.1” After reading this article, I wondered for a moment if I am working in the same healthcare system as the Secretary. Having spent a significant part of my 36-year career negotiating financial transactions with and/or on behalf of practicing physicians, I can unequivocally state that, unlike healthcare thought -leaders and policy wonks, a scant few practicing physicians are on board with population health management, value-based care and the “triple aim.”
It is essential to significantly improve the value of healthcare and it will require a lot of work by all. Given the disconnect between the policy makers/‘thought- leaders’ and the nation’s practicing physicians, I am pretty sure we are not going to get very far. Most practicing physicians consider the current movement to value based care/population health to be ineffective, expensive, bureaucratic interference with the practice of medicine.