Survey: Adopting Value-Based Models Will Be Challenging for Family Medicine

Family medicine has a long way to go in supporting the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ goal of tying fully half of traditional fee-for-service Medicare payments to value-based payment models by 2018, if a new survey from the American Academy of Family Medicine is any indication. Urgent care typically operates on a parallel, fee-for-service model, but the evolution of how other practice environments come to terms with the changing dynamics of the healthcare marketplace can be instructive. For example, while 33 percent of the 626 family physician survey respondents are already pursuing value-based payment opportunities, more (46 percent) say pay-for-performance programs are not even in available in their area at this time. Others (19 percent) say they are working on value-based capabilities, but want to ensure they are worth pursuing before committing. Twenty-five percent either don’t know or are unsure of what their strategy will be, according to the survey. The vast majority (91 percent) say “lack of staff time” will be an obstacle in implementing value-based payment models; another 87 percent have concerns about investing in related health information technology. AAFP presented survey results in a congressional briefing on December 1 in Washington, DC.