Adding Value by Talking More

In many situations, having physicians and other clinical personnel talk more with patients and each other can be the least expensive and most effective approach for delivering better patient care, and new payment models provide incentives for such discussions. The prevailing fee-for-service payment model has led U.S. health care administrators and physician practices to impose severe constraints on the time physicians spend talking, for which they are reimbursed poorly or not at all. New value-based reimbursement models, however, such as bundled payments, accountable care organizations, and shared savings plans, provide powerful incentives for physicians to regain control over the quantity and quality of time they spend talking. As we have helped dozens of organizations to estimate total care-cycle costs, we’ve identified many situations in which having physicians and other clinical personnel talk more with patients and each other can . . .