Brian Marcotte Describes the Challenge of Value-Based Purchasing

It’s crucial for accountable care organizations (ACOs) to not only understand what value-based purchasing is, but for everyone to be on the same page as far as the expectations involved and what exactly it takes to get there, said Brian Marcotte, president and CEO at The National Business Group on Health.

Transcript (slightly modified)

How do you evaluate value-based purchasing?

Well, I think the challenge with value-based purchasing is that it’s a phrase that a lot of people don’t understand right now and I think this is one of those areas where it’s critical to get an alignment on what do we mean by value-purchasing and what can you expect from a network perspective, from a care model perspective, from a population health management and the financing model — what does all of that mean in a value-based purchasing scenario.

And that there’s a journey that these ACO’s go along as they evolve and they are able to take on risk, that they are able to do population health management and we need to educate employers so they can articulate back to the market what they expect and have that alignment be there as they’re talking to providers and as they’re talking to health plans so everybody’s on the same page and everybody knows what the ask is and know what it takes to get there.