Three of Remedy Partners’ thought leaders spoke at last week’s MACRA Summit in Washington, D.C. The conference was focused on educating physicians, policy makers and an array of healthcare executives on MACRA and implications of potential new regulations, as well as the associated payment model options that are designed to improve care and restrain cost growth. Participants displayed palpable energy and interest in sponsoring new forms of payment and clinical models to improve our healthcare system.

Chip Howard, SVP of Partner Services at Remedy Partners, explored compelling reasons for commercial payers to sponsor alternative payment models. Chip spoke from his experience at payer organizations running a broad set of payment models geared toward specialists as well as primary care physicians. For hospitals, health systems and physicians, he underscored the importance of articulating why their desired payment model would fit well with the payers’ existing portfolio.

Additionally, providers and payers asked probing questions about how existing configurations and alignments between hospitals and physicians would be affected by MACRA. Nick Bluhm, Director of Strategy and Government Policy at Remedy Partners, articulated why accountable care organizations (ACOs), which are uniquely positioned to engage primary care physicians, often do not have the necessary tools to support hospital-based care redesign. He encouraged sponsors of ACOs to examine how layering episode-based payments on top of the ACO structure could leverage and improve the value of existing investments.

Finally, attendees heard from Win Whitcomb, M.D., M.H.M., and Chief Medical Officer at Remedy Partners. Dr. Whitcomb explained how Remedy Partners approaches care redesign in elective surgical bundles. He detailed how the organization and its partners use tools to foster recovery at home, interdisciplinary teamwork and close collaboration with caregivers to improve patient outcomes. This was underscored by his presentation of Remedy Partners’ marked improvement in discharge-to-home rates with an accompanying decrease in readmissions across all elective joint replacement initiators. Dr. Whitcomb also described how bundles can be improved for next generation payment models.

The MACRA Summit captured the excitement that providers and payers have about the untapped potential for delivery system redesign powered by alternative payment models. Every stakeholder will have a unique approach to MACRA. Remedy stands ready to help incorporate an episode of care framework into payment models to help providers do what’s right for the patient.