Value-based care is driving more and more physicians to seek outside support

Most independent physicians are not prepared for the transition to value-based care payments, according to a survey of almost 900 physicians conducted in 2018. Black Book Market Research LLC conducted the value-based care study in Q1/Q2 2018, focusing on “measuring the increased demand for advisors to help medical providers and practices make the move to value based care by easing their administrative burden across payers and supporting the launch and management of their own health plans.”

Significant findings from the survey included insight into ways that the “new era of how providers get paid is going to impact the entire organization and most physician organizations aren’t remotely prepared for it according to 88% of surveyed practice managers.” Other findings from the survey involving 877 physicians, as described in Black Book’s news release, included:

• 68% of group practices of ten or more physicians reported they would seek external advisement on financially and clinically transforming their operations before Q2 2019
• 89% of all surveyed physician organization decision makers on hiring a value-based care consultancy agree that they prefer an advisor with both Population Health Management and Revenue Cycle Management expertise
• 21% of academic medical centers physician departments and clinics surveyed will have engaged a value-based consultancy by Q4 2018
• 93% have no strategic plan activated for transforming population health management or value-based care solutions end-to-end to confront known deadlines because there are no internal experts identified
• Less than 7% of physician organizations surveyed have begun comprehensive value-based care software vendor selection activities and are considering consultants to assist them
• 95% of group practice and large clinic Chief Information Officers state they do not have the information technology or staff in-house needed to transform value-based care end-to-end as their physician and or executive team envisions.

Doug Brown, Founder of Black Book Research, commented that “Consultative approaches that emphasize physician engagement, culture change, actionable data and analytics are producing some very prepared and motivated physician organizations as they move from volume to value.”