If you’re looking for a way to incentivize your process quality and efficiency, then value-based, or accountable care might be right for you. Known as value-based purchasing or pay for performance (P4P), this payment model offers financial incentives to healthcare professionals for meeting certain performance measures instead of relying on difficult-to-measure clinical outcomes. With the shift away from measuring the number of patients and upselling of add-on services to focusing on the quality and value of the services provided and preventative care, healthcare professionals are able to focus their energy on patient-centered solutions.

According to an article for The Midland Group, value-based healthcare can be broken up and classified into 4 categories that can be implemented in several ways by a provider:

  1. All Department Sharing the Risk – When all departments share the risk, they can work collaboratively toward keeping spending at or below their budget and keeping overall costs down when providing quality care.
  2. Offering Contracts to Patients – By offering short- and long-term patients unique individual contracts based on a per month model, some of the costs can be deferred, which ensures each patient can receive the treatment they require without financial burden.
  3. Bundling Service Offerings – When patients can determine what services they do and do not need and what’s most important to them through bundling, they can personalize their care while the healthcare facility saves money by rendering only the services requested.
  4. Sharing Savings – Money can be saved across all departments and organizations that can cover the costs of the others, which allows for the organization to focus on the actual care and still reach overall budget goals.

Of course, value-based care is not without its challenges. There are concerns with the validity of quality indicators, patient and physician autonomy and privacy, and increased administrative burdens. However, if your organization can implement successful value-based care, it can work as both a short- and long-term strategy to create more top-line revenue and contain costs.

Author