How Value-Based Payments Support Physicians During a Crisis

The pandemic has shown the best of American healthcare (collaboration and selflessness on the part of providers, to name some highlights) but also many of the system’s challenges. From a practical perspective, the primary challenge was compensation, explained the chief physician executive and COO at Southwestern Health Resources and former senior physician advisor at CMS’ Innovation Center.

But the push to pay out value-based payments begs a broader question about provider compensation, Doddamani stressed.

Furthermore, data from the Primary Care Collaborative and the Larry A. Green Center showed that nearly a fifth of primary care practices had temporarily closed in May despite ongoing outbreaks of COVID-19 in their communities.

Meanwhile, practices that were able to stay open had to quickly pivot operations to ensure their patient's and providers' safety. Chief among those changes was telehealth.