The Power of Readily Available Information
In the past decade, health care payment models have shifted from volume-driven, fee-for-service payments toward value-based care and payment models. These alternative payment models (APMs) hold the potential to improve quality, enhance the care experience, and reduce costs. Yet oral health is often not considered in the testing of APMs, and the dental field has been slow to adopt them on its own.
A report from CareQuest Institute for Oral Health makes the case that to advance whole-person health, APMs must include oral health. The authors review public-payor APM designs in several leading states, with a focus on models that include oral health. Key points include:
- Information on APMs is limited and not readily accessible.
- Publicly available, high-quality, easy-to-find information is critical in payment reform efforts to fully understand the oral health landscape in APMs, to ensure that more APMs include oral health, and to learn from the successes and challenges of existing models.
- A case study of Vermont provides an example that moving from fee-for-service to value-based payment takes time, but collaboration and transparency set the stage for oral health to be included in future payment and transformation efforts.
You may also be interested in:
- Update on Alternative Payment Models in Oral Health Care, a journal article that compares spending and service utilization of fee-for-service models to alternative payment models.
- An Introduction to Value-Based Care in Oral Health: Moving from Volume to Value, a self-paced CE course that explains how VBC can improve patient outcomes while benefiting providers and payors.
- Value-Based Care Readiness Assessment, a tool to help dental and health care leadership teams evaluate organizational readiness to transition to a value-based care and payment model in dentistry.
