While value-based payments are conceptually easy to understand, the implementation of alternative payment models is “infinitely more difficult to execute,” National Pharmaceutical Council President Dan Leonard says in a recent article published on Chain Drug Review.
“Value is even harder to capture when a single treatment can lead to a cure or a significant health improvement over a patient’s lifetime,” Leonard writes. “Sometimes, we must look back at the historical arc of a disease or condition and the improvements that have been made over the years to get a comprehensive view of what brings value to patients.”
Leonard ultimately stressed that health care stakeholders across the board “must work together” to create a value-based system. And though value-based principles may suggest implementing less resources based on the determined benefit to the patient, he said its key to think long term.
“It is important to consider and capture the full value of interventions over time,” he writes. “The potential pitfall of attempts at assigning value to drugs or any individual component of the health care system is that they don’t capture the full value of what those interventions bring to the patient.”
click here to read Leonard’s full write up on Chain Drug Review.
