HFMA tackles healthcare payment reform
The Healthcare Financial Management Association, which is in the midst of its annual conference here, has released the first in a series of reports aimed at building a new payment system for healthcare.
"Healthcare Payment Reform; From Principles to Action" was released Monday at the Annual National Institute in Las Vegas.
Consumers, providers, payers, and employers provided input for the report.
"A multitude of tradeoffs are necessary to accommodate the unique concerns of providers, payers, employers, and consumers for payment reform," said Richard L. Clarke, president and CEO, HFMA. "However, HFMA has identified widespread stakeholder support for a set of principles and certain types of system design for meaningful payment reform. This consensus presents an important opportunity to take action on this complex and critical reform."
The report focuses on four major areas:
- Generally accepted health goals for the United States;
- Barriers to achieving those goals that are caused by the current payment system;
- Principles that provide a framework to reduce those barriers; and
- Guidance for reform efforts.
- It also identifies five principles:
- Quality - Payments should encourage and reward high-quality care and discourage medical errors and ineffective care.
- Alignment - Payments should align incentives among all stakeholders to maximize the efficiency and coordination of health services.
- Fairness - Payment systems should sufficiently balance the needs and concerns of all stakeholders.
- Simplification - Payment processes should be simplified, standard, and transparent.
- Societal benefit - The resources needed to support broad societal benefits such as medical and public education, medical research, and care for disenfranchised or uninsured persons should be identified and paid for explicitly.
The report presents a number of payment types and elements that can support these principles, along with areas of stakeholder consensus and concern about each.
