By Kelly A. Briganti, Editorial Director, G2 Intelligence
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) launched a new resource last week to further the goal of value- and quality-based reimbursement. The Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network offers an opportunity for public and private organizations, payers, providers, consumer groups and even individual consumers to dialogue about the best way to achieve (and exceed) the thresholds HHS set for moving Medicare payments to alternative payment models that focus on quality rather than quantity.
An independent network contractor will facilitate the forum, identifying discussion topics and gathering experts from the various segments of the industry, creating workgroups and providing “logistical support” for sharing information among all participants. A “Guiding Committee,” consisting of network participants, will assist the contractor by providing recommendations regarding discussion topics and other issues. Workgroups will be formed among the participants to address specific individual topics. HHS representatives may participate in either the Guiding Committee or workgroups and information will be shared with all network participants via webinars and live meetings.
An HHS Fact Sheet describes some of the networks’ activities:
- Support and promote implementation of new payment and health care delivery models.
- Identify consensus about transitions to alternative payment models and reporting on such models.
- “Collaborate to generate evidence, share approaches, and remove barriers.”
- Address methods to deal with issues such as “beneficiary attribution, financial models, benchmarking, quality and performance measurement, [and] risk adjustment.”
- “Create implementation guides for payers, purchasers, providers, and consumers.”
All interested parties are invited to register and participate in the network by visiting the network’s website. There’s no fee to participate but HHS is not funding participants’ involvement in or travel to any events relating to the network. Network participants will engage in work groups, share best practices and support and promote the HHS goals for moving to alternative payment models and help establish standard definitions for these models. The results of all this information sharing and collaboration will include best practice white papers which will be collected and made available to not only participants but the public as well.