Premier Statement on LAN’s New Goals to Accelerate Reach & Impact of Value-Based Payment Reform

By Susan DeVore, CEO of Premier Inc. and member of the LAN’s newly-launched CEO Forum

Premier and its more than 4,000 health system members and 175,000 other providers and organizations are ardent supporters of the movement toward value-based payment models as a core strategy for enhancing population health and bending the cost curve. With the right payment incentives in place, we know we can accomplish the new goals for the future of payment reform released by the Health Care Payment Learning & Action Network (LAN) today. This includes reducing waste, regulatory burdens and ineffective care. Moreover, the right incentives will reward a focus on wellness and addressing the social influencers of health.

Premier believes that to reach the goals of the LAN, all providers of care need to be incented to participate, from primary through to post-acute care. However, this can only happen if all the providers along the value chain are given equitable treatment across the various payment models to create a level playing field.

Premier also strongly supports the LAN’s goals to increase transparency, interoperability and timely access to data. A recent Premier survey revealed that lack of healthcare provider access to timely electronic medical record and claims data is a major impediment in the movement to value and risk-based contracts. Access to data and the analytics to understand total cost of care and specific performance is a cornerstone for success in value-based payment models. We look forward to the release of the Office of the National Coordinator’s interoperability rule. We are hopeful that the rule will further support the development of a vibrant marketplace for apps that can easily and affordably integrate with EHR platforms, as well as enable app developers to read data and then embed it into the clinician workflow.

We are confident that these steps will help accelerate the movement toward new partnerships and collaboration in healthcare delivery, higher-quality care and the improved health of our nation.