Health Reform IVI

Why “value” is central to true health care reform

Morning Consult has an interesting piece from Mark Linthicum, the Director of Scientific Communication at the Innovation and Value Initiative (IVI) titled “Why Understanding Value Is Central to True Health Care Reform“.  In the piece he argues:

The true problem is that dollars are poured into a system without any clear understanding of how worthwhile one dollar spent is, relative to another. The remedy lies in making spending and coverage decisions based on the value – not just the price tag – of health care treatments and services.

Value-based spending is a simple notion that amounts to prioritizing spending on services where the benefits outweigh cost – spend less on recognized areas of low-value care, like unnecessary tests and procedures, and more on high-value areas like vaccines.

Implementing value-based spending in practice, however, is more complicated because health care system stakeholders each have disparate, and sometimes conflicting, definitions of value.

Interesting throughout. Do read the whole piece.

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