Dr Peter Aran on Involving Providers in Development Process of New Reimbursement Models

Involving providers in the development process of new reimbursement models increases the chance that the initiative will be successful and works against caregiver burnout, said Peter Aran, MD, medical director of Population Health Management at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oklahoma.

Transcript (slightly modified)

Should providers be involved in the development process of new reimbursement models?

I’m a crusader almost for the quadruple aim. Mostly everybody within healthcare, research, and healthcare policy understands the triple aim. The quadruple aim is additive to all the benefits of the triple aim. Quadruple aim, though, says exactly what your question implies: that we need to be including front-line caregivers when we’re designing these quality initiatives, whether it’s a CMS initiative, whether it’s a hospital initiative, or if you have a progressive group. If it’s an office-based quality improvement initiative, it’ll work umpteen times better if you include the front-line caregivers as early as you can in the design phase.

So, we’re doing that in Oklahoma. The 5 oncology practices that are part of OCM, we have brought together and we’re trying to make our own collaborative design for patients under 65 in Oklahoma, so we’ll see if it works. But, that’s precisely what we should be doing. Including the caregivers early on does 2 things: it increases the chance that the initiative will be successful, and it works against caregiver burnout, whether it’s a nurse or a doctor, pharmacist, or administrator, or lay caregivers who take care of our patients at home. We are all subject to burnout, and having caregivers as part of the design team lowers that risk.