Forbes April 8, 2024
More than a decade ago, the idea of population health management as an alternative way of structuring how we pay for healthcare became au courant. The topic became all the rage–conferences, articles, books, and lots of enthusiastic internal meetings followed. A new office within the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation, was born with a budget of $1 billion per year and charged with introducing new alternative payment system “pilots” as a way to encourage changes in the payment model within the industry.
The current system, called fee-for-service, pays hospitals and physicians for each service they provide to the patient. Since providers make more money when they do more tests, imaging and so...