Overview

For 2017 National Value-Based Payment and Pay for Performance Summit will take place during a period of possible dramatic national health policy changes driven by the election of President-elect Donald Trump and the Republican-dominated Congress. At the time that this brochure is being mailed there are more questions than answers regarding direction that national health policy will take.

• Will the ACA/Obamacare be repealed and replaced? If so, over what time frame will this take place?
  
• Will there be an effort to move Medicare to a premium support, voucher program?
  
• Will there be an effort to move Medicaid to a block grant or per capita cap program?
  
• And importantly for this Summit, what will the attitude of the new administration be to value-based payments, including accountable care, bundled payment, CPC+, medical home, etc., and MACRA?
  

At this time the majority opinion seems to be that it is likely that the Trump Administration will continue some level of support for value-based payment initiatives and MACRA which was passed with bi-partisan support. But in the context of the extraordinary political events of the past year, it is very hard indeed to prognosticate the future health policy of the Trump administration.

It may well be that more discretion regarding health policy and payment may be delegated to the states. Thus health care providers and payers may face different approaches in different states.

Regardless to the direction pf public health policy, the private marketplace continues to evolve in the direction of value-based payments. Physicians, hospitals and other healthcare providers are routinely seeing their performance compared to peers, national benchmarks and their own past performance. On the down side, the explosion of measurement has become “too much of a good thing.” As a result, attention has shifted to discovering ways to better automate the measurement process and narrow its focus. In addition, despite tremendous progress, our payment system is still predominantly based on fee for service. We’re still far from a health care system that consistently delivers best care at lowest cost, and our ability to truly measure and reward outcomes is at an early stage.

This year’s conference will provide an opportunity to engage with colleagues from across the country on the issues, opportunities, and challenges facing the health care system in 2017 and beyond. Leaders from industry, government and the non-profit sector will share best practices and lessons learned from grappling with real-world implementation issues as they strive to improve quality while reducing costs. We will hear about Performance Measures and Data to Implement Alternative Payment Models, Encounter Data and the Future of the Delegated Model, Innovative Approaches to Involving Specialists in Value-based Payment, National Best Practices in Value-based Payment Innovation and Implementation and the challenges of MACRA Implementation. Leading health plans and provider organizations will share observations from the front lines of product development and care delivery, while researchers will reveal what they have learned through studying success. Throughout the conference, practitioners actively engaged in the challenging work of improving our healthcare system will learn from each other, and accelerate our progress toward creating a higher-value system. In addition, the conference has become a great opportunity to reconnect on an annual basis – we will be delighted if you can join us.