Catalyst for Payment Reform initiative launched to accelerate healthcare payment reforms

Seven large employers, including six Fortune 500 companies and one state, have launched Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR). CPR is an effort to help large employers work together to accelerate healthcare payment reforms.

The employers who have signed onto CPR are The Boeing Company, Delta Air Lines, Equity Healthcare, GE, the Group Insurance Commission of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Intel Corporation, and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

CPR plans to provide them with tools to assess the attributes of specific markets to determine how various reforms to payment can be most effective in those locations, and will track progress on payment reform.

“There is a lot more work that needs to be done on this front, requiring much more transparency from health plans to providers,” says Suzanne Delbanco, Ph.D., who is CPR’s executive director. “We need to create the equivalent of a bank statement for physicians and hospitals to clarify where their money comes from, how much, and why. Ideally, payment contracts will instantly align incentives for higher-quality and more cost-effective care. But as long as we are combining normal fee schedules with incentives, distinguishing the portions of each is critical to motivate behavior change.”

CPR’s plans to release tools throughout this fall, including the Market Assessment Tool and six Action Briefs that outline steps employers can take toward three types of payment reform (fee for service, bundled payments, and global payments), two types of delivery system reform (accountable care organizations and medical homes), and analyses of how the level of competition in a given market affects the rates at which purchasers and plans pay providers.