News Feature | November 21, 2014

Lack Of Analytics Hindering Transition To Value Based Care

Katie Wike

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

A survey from McKesson finds providers are having difficulty making the switch to value-based reimbursement, mostly due to a lack of proper data.

Value-based reimbursement, or VBR, is difficult for providers, according to a recent survey from electronic health record vendor McKesson. Writing about the survey, Health IT Analytics reports 90 percent of payers and 81 percent of providers already rely on VBR for at least a portion of their revenue.

However, many do not have the data analytics needed to make the most of this transition. In fact, one in five providers says the lack of data tools has made the switch to VBR difficult.

“The affordability crisis is causing unprecedented changes in the healthcare landscape, the most significant of which is the transition from the current volume-based model to myriad models based on measures of value,” writes David Nace, MD, Vice President and Medical Director of McKesson Health Solutions.  “Most payers and providers expect value-based reimbursement to overtake fee-for-service by the year 2020, but they face daunting complexity in integrating complex reimbursement models, and say they have an urgent need for next-generation healthcare IT to successfully transition to value-based models.”

According to the survey results, ACOs are one type of organization that has embraced the VBR for the majority of their revenue. Those providers in ACOs actually think VBR will benefit their organizations.

“When asked what factors make these models difficult to implement, both providers and payers state that the key obstacles are technology related. They are concerned about not having the ability to measure and analyze, not having the infrastructure to support pay-for-performance, and a lack of systems to capture data,” says the report.

“Both payers and providers state that the tools they most urgently need to successfully implement value-based reimbursement are those that help clinicians understand and measure performance against quality and cost metrics,” researchers concluded.