Preparing for change: How does your health system stack up?

How does your health system compare to others when it comes to value-based payment readiness? Recent survey findings from the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) might provide some answers.

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The survey, sponsored by Humana and entitled "HFMA’s Executive Survey: Value-Based Payment Readiness," asked 146 senior finance executives, ranging from chief financial officers to finance vice presidents, about key areas such as interoperability, value-based payment involvement, and data analytics. About half of the respondents were from systems with more than two hospitals, and half were from systems with two hospitals or less.

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Here are four of the most noteworthy survey findings:

1. Executives anticipate a big uptick in value-based contracts.  

The survey asked respondents several questions about where they were in the path toward value-based payment. When asked: What is the overall percentage of your payments from commercial payers that incorporate value-based mechanisms today, the median percentage response among respondents was 12%.

Still, when respondents were asked what they anticipated that percentage would look like in three years, it became clear the majority expects a dramatic increase. The median percentage response among all respondents was 50%.

2. Executives report positive returns on value-based contracts.

The survey also asked respondents (those who reported that 10% or more of their commercial payments incorporate value-based mechanisms), what impact those contracts are having on their bottom line.

More than 51% said that their system has achieved a positive return on investment from those programs; only 26% reported a negative return.

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3. Executives say information exchange is critical, but a big challenge.

Nearly 70% of survey respondents said their organizations will need to be "extremely capable" when it comes to interoperability in the next three years.

Still, only 16% of executives said their organization currently is highly capable when it comes to interoperability.

Of note, hospitals with 300 or more beds rated their interoperability capabilities much higher than respondents from smaller systems.

4.Executives say data analytics tops the list of high-impact items.

When asked to rank various items as having a high impact or very high impact on an organization’s ability to accept risk in a value-based contract, respondents ranked analytical support (business intelligence and/or actuarial competency) at the top.

Other popular high impact items noted by respondents included: consistent measures of care quality, patient-level monitoring of regimen adherence, and encouraging patient engagement.