Dr Bruce Sherman Discusses Opportunities for Employers to Emphasize Value When Purchasing Healthcare Plans

Employers’ decisions around purchasing healthcare plans should focus on a broader measure of value, including employee productivity, not just cost, according to Bruce Sherman, MD, chief medical officer of the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions.

Transcript

How do employers measure value and efficiency when they purchase healthcare plans?

This is an issue. Employers are challenged, I think, to measure value because the timeframe for quantifying value is more often than not driven by C-suite, particularly CFO [chief financial officer] decision making, so the expectation is that value has to be manifest in a shorter timeframe than what might be clinically appropriate, so cost has continued to be the primary focus instead of overall value.

Where I think employers have an opportunity which has not been fully realized is to quantify more broadly a measure of value which encompasses not only the cost of services but the attending impacts on employee productivity and performance in the workplace. With that bigger picture in mind, hopefully employers can think more holistically and comprehensively about the value that they’re deriving from healthcare.