Dr Ray Page Discusses Delays in Reporting OCM Results

Delays in reporting Oncology Care Model results from performance periods creates tremendous uncertainty, said Ray Page, DO, PhD, president and director of research at The Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders.

Transcript:

Do you think practices participating in OCM are getting better at understanding why they got the results that they did for a performance period and how to adjust going forward?

I think the practices participating in Oncology Care Model (OCM) has been interesting and a challenge, just dealing with the data that we have. I think practices are doing everything that we can to try to best understand that data because it's robust, and it's complex, and there's a lot of moving parts. Many of us have used outside companies and resources in order to try to mine that data and look for discrepancies and efficiencies, ultimately to try to create mechanisms for us to improve processes in our practice to improve our value-based performance outcomes.

How does your practice manage the delay between when a performance period ends and when you receive the results?

The delay in reporting is really difficult because it creates tremendous uncertainty. Because we look at our numbers and our data, and we're actively, every week, making transformational changes. We're evolving in our practice and changing processes. But we don't know if those changes that we have made, have made the appropriate impact that we need that has truly created added value to our practice. It's hard because we've made tremendous change and transformation, yet, we don't truly see those outcomes for another year or so. If anything, if we could get that reporting timing in a much closer interval, I think it would help us all improve at a faster pace.

Practices are now thinking about whether they're going to be taking downside risk. What has that discussion been like for your practice?

Our practice is strongly investigating whether or not it would be beneficial for us to move towards taking on additional downside risk. It's just a challenge because our practice is one of those practices that has not been struggling in the positive. As you try to do the math and the calculations to determine whether or not it would be meaningful and beneficial, I think for our practice, we're very much on the fence. There's uncertainties. You want to think positive, and think that the glass is going to be half full, and if you continue to make the adjustments that we're making that that'll mitigate those downside risks. But then we have the uncertainties that you just don't really know for sure.