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HOW EMPLOYERS ARE FIXING HEALTH CARE

Value-Based Care

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HOW EMPLOYERS ARE FIXING HEALTH CARE

March 16, 2019

HOW EMPLOYERS ARE FIXING HEALTH CARE

For competitive companies, providing quality coverage is good business. It helps attract and retain employees (good health plans are a sought-after benefit), and workers who receive good, affordable care are more satisfied and productive. But that coverage is expensive, and costs are rising. Employer spending on health care services increased by 44% per enrollee from 2007 to 2016, reaching an annual amount of nearly $700 billion in 2017 — roughly what the Pentagon spends on defense. Walmart alone spends billions of dollars a year on health care for its associates (as the company refers to its employees).

Much is at stake: Various actors in the health care ecosystem, some large insurers and providers among them, benefit from an arrangement that layers on administrative costs and rewards volume, not value. Yet business as usual is unsustainable for those absorbing the costs and experiencing the uneven quality of care. Pioneering employers and providers are in a position to upend the status quo and change expectations about what affordable, quality care can and should be. What follows is an account of our experience with one important effort, among several being tried, to find a better way.

The full Harvard Business Review article can be found at this link.  

 

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