COVID is Showing the Value of Value-Based Care – Dr. Tobias Barker, Chief Medical Officer at Everside Health

“Most of the time, things that make sense are probably going to find their way to the top, and value-based care just makes so much sense,” says Dr. Tobias Barker, chief medical officer of Everside Health (formerly Paladina Health). Barker has been exposed to many approaches to delivering care in a career that has taken him from under-resourced areas around the globe to VA hospitals to the retail giant CVS. What makes so much sense to him about value-based care, which pays providers an upfront fee every month for the patients they treat and rewards quality of care, is it allows them to do what will help patients be as healthy as possible without worrying if it fits a billing code. Everside uses this approach providing primary care to the employees of self-insured employers, and it has proven to reduce the total cost of care. It has also proven to be a resilient business model during the pandemic. Providers still in the traditional “fee for service” system were hit hard when patients stopped showing up because there were fewer services to bill for, while those in the value-based system could rely on the steady upfront payments. In this episode of Raise the Line, Barker is full of interesting examples and anecdotes as he recounts to host Shiv Gaglani his circuitous educational and career path, experiences at CVS Health and working early in his career with Dr. Anthony Fauci. If you like this podcast, please share it on your social channels. You can also subscribe to the series and check out all of our episodes at www.osmosis.org/podcast