Dive Brief:
- While value-based care has long been heralded as a way to reduce healthcare costs, 40% of employers said they haven’t linked any of their spending to such a model, according to results of a survey by professional services organization EY.
- Among those that have tried value-based frameworks, adoption is not widespread, EY found. Of the about 100 U.S. HR and benefits leaders surveyed in April, just shy of half said their company’s use is limited rather than widely scaled.
- EY’s findings come as employers face continually skyrocketing healthcare costs and grapple with which benefits to provide — and at what price.
Dive Insight:
Value-based care models tie cost to medical outcomes rather than volume like in fee-for-service arrangements and are something the healthcare industry has been transitioning to since the Affordable Care Act went into effect in 2010.
Payers should more broadly consider their use, however, according to the president and CEO of healthcare technology company Codametrix.
As providers turn to artificial intelligence to automate coding, costs for insurers are climbing, recent Blue Cross Blue Shield Association research posited. That’s because insurers use codes to process claims.
Yet many companies (45%) don’t plan to make any changes to their value-based arrangements in the next three years, EY found. And only 3% of companies are channeling more than 31% of their medical spending through value-based payment models, per the survey.
Still, employers cited controlling company medical and pharmacy costs as their top priority when it comes to employee health and wellness benefits, per EY, followed by employee engagement and utilization and controlling the employee share of medical and pharmacy costs.
