Jason Scalise, MD, and David Jacofsky, MD, authored an article for Clinical Spine Surgery titled "Payor Reform Opportunities for Spine Surgery: Part II The Potential Emergence of Population Health."
Here are the key trends from the article:
1. The most common value-based reimbursement model for spine surgeries is bundled payments, and more surgeons and payers are moving in that direction. While bundled payments have cost-saving attributes, the payments are still linked to the surgical episode of care and are tied to volume.
2. Payment models focused on cutting waste, reducing the variation of care and enacting savings could provide better overall outcomes tied to quality.
3. Payers and providers are now developing population health strategies to address clinical delivery and cost variation issues in overall spine care management. The new payment methods "make spine surgery an acute target of such population health strategies."
4. The authors recommend spine surgeons take time to understand the forces driving change in payment models and care delivery to optimize outcomes and performance.