Health Affairs March 24, 2025
Editor’s Note
This article is the latest in the Health Affairs Forefront series, Accountable Care for Population Health, featuring analysis and discussion of how to understand, design, support, and measure patient-centered, cost-efficient care under the umbrella of accountable care. Additional articles will be published throughout 2025. Readers are encouraged to review the Call for Submissions for this series. We are grateful to Arnold Ventures for their support of this work.
After more than a decade of experimentation, the verdict on value-based payment (VBP) models is decidedly mixed—there have been modest improvements in spending and quality but without breakthrough success in driving better health outcomes and sustainable spending at scale. Without dramatic changes in strategies, VBP risks becoming a footnote to...