TAMPA, Fla., May 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Despite the decade-long movement away from physician-led practices to hospital employment, Black Book's 2018 value-based care study noted a recent shift in that trend. Physicians working for a hospital or in a practice with some ownership climbed in 2016 to 32.6%. But after a six year upswing, independent and physician-led group practices began to rally back up to 72.0% in 2017.
Population health and value-based care models are driving more coordinated, integrated and consumer-centric physician organizations," said Doug Brown, Founder of Black Book Research. "Physicians not affiliated with hospitals are recognizing there are long-term savings if they assume risk and manage population health in the same way as a hospital in an ACO."
To facilitate the transformation within physician organizations, providers are increasingly seeking the advice of value-based care consulting firms to review accountable care organizations opportunities as a mounting number of multi-specialty practices are willing to accept risk.
68% of group practices of ten or more physicians reported they would seek external advisement on financially and clinically transforming their operations before Q2 2019.
"Many physician organizations are not succeeding linearly through the transition towards alternative payment models and do not have well-defined plans to hit certain date-sensitive financial thresholds, hence the rise in demand for consultant firms with value-based care expertise in physician organizations," said Brown.
Nearly 900 physician organizations participated in the Q1/Q2 survey measuring the increased demand for advisors to help medical providers and practices make the move to value based care by easing their administrative burden across payers and supporting the launch and management of their own health plans.
The Black Book study of value-based consultants and physician practice advisors segmented client experiences in Clinical Transformations, Financial Transformations, Accountable Care and Risk sharing models, care coordination and Payer contracting engagements. Findings include:
89% of all surveyed physician organization decision makers on hiring a value-based care consultancy agree that they prefer an advisor with both Population Health Management and Revenue Cycle Management expertise.
21% of academic medical centers physician departments and clinics surveyed will have engaged a value-based consultancy by Q4 2018.
