Susan Dentzer Discusses Obstacles to Adoption of Value-Based Care

The biggest challenge in moving to value-based care is the mindset of providers accustomed to volume-based care, as they must work with payers to change the systems, said Susan Dentzer, president and CEO of The Network for Excellence in Health Innovation.

Transcript (slightly modified)

What are the biggest challenges still facing healthcare as it moves to value-based care?

Number one, inertia. Systems are so embedded in the volume model, many of them. They really cannot see a path forward in the value model. Particularly if it means doing lots of things differently. If it means a conceptual mind shift that, my hospital is better off empty rather than full. The physicians and the other people in the workforce who I once needed in certain numbers that I thought were predictable, now I don’t really know what my workforce should look like. And I need to innovate around my workforce, maybe I need fewer specialists, and I need more community health workers and peer counselors. Particularly at large academic centers, where you have people with appointments and a strong institutional basis that this is the way we run things, it’s very, very hard to change. So I think that first and foremost is probably the biggest obstacle.

And then, you can’t just want to do this change as a provider, you’ve got to have the payers who are willing to engage with you. So is there a meeting of minds between payers and providers to move to value together, and work out the kinks together, because as we hear over and over again, there are lots of kinks along the way.