How Value-Based Care Can Save Your Practice

Primary care is in the midst of a crisis. Many practices face the possibility of closure as they deal with fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. So what can physicians do to save their practices and treat their patients effectively? Farzad Mostashari, M.D., says physicians should embrace risk.

I think the solution is to take risks. The solution is saying to the health plan, “Hey, we’re not going to run up the bill on telehealth because we have an incentive to care about the total cost of care.” More risk is more freedom, in that sense, because if you’re on the same side as the payer, then they’ll say, “You’ll deliver the care however you want to deliver it, I don’t care, because you have the same incentives to keep the person healthy and out of the hospital, as opposed to running up the bill.”