Making Value-Based Care Work in Rural Health

Today's episode is about how the Rural Risk-Free Solution helps rural hospitals and health systems take on risk faster to achieve value-based care. The methodology is a community / population health approach. By providing analytics on care metrics, nurse-led and team based care, and population health programs, you can improve outcomes for both communities and the hospitals. Today we have Lynn Barr here from Caravan Health to explain how it works. 

Highlights from A Rural Risk-Free Solution

• The rural challenges of moving from cost-based reimbursement to value-based care.
• How consolidation is putting rural clinics at risk.

We thought we were very high quality, we were the best. We were leading the country. And guess what happened? We reported our quality results. And we were the worst in the country. It was the first time we knew. Nobody had been gathering our data!

• The Rural ACO Turn Around Story
• The payment incentive system that is working against us.
• Build a support system around your doctors.

It doesn't really take much time to fix this stuff. We beat the national averages by 2015. This isn't rocket science. It's just a bunch of work and it's hard to change.

• The ACO numbers game.
• BONUS: How will the COVID-19 pandemic effect ACOs?

Lynn Barr, Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Caravan Health

Lynn Barr is a recognized leader in the movement to transform and improve our nation's healthcare systems. While working at a rural hospital as Chief Information Officer, Lynn organized the National Rural Accountable Care Consortium to overcome barriers for rural health providers so they could participate in innovative payment models under healthcare reform. In 2014 Caravan Health was formed to provide turn-key services to providers interested in population health programs in Practice Transformation Networks, Medicare and Commercial Accountable Care Organizations, MACRA, Comprehensive Primary Care, and other payment models.

As founder of Caravan Health, Ms. Barr has led the development and execution of nationwide programs that bring better care to patients and help health care providers achieve financial success. Caravan Health supports more than 13,000 primary care providers and 250 community hospitals making the transformation to value-based payments, with affordable, simple solutions that achieve outstanding results.

Ms. Barr is a popular speaker and a frequent collaborator with government and national organizations looking to improve our healthcare systems.

About Caravan Health

Caravan Health was started by a forward-looking group of community hospital CEOs and physicians who recognized early on the many challenges they would face transforming to a value-based payment model. They were attracted to the emphasis on the patient and the focus on improving overall community health through operational improvements, staff development, community engagement, regional collaboration, and the effective utilization of useful information based on never-before-available data.

Caravan Health is now a national leader of successful accountable care and population health programs for community health systems. Caravan helps physicians and hospitals work together to create, operate and manage successful population health programs that improve patient care, clinician satisfaction and financial performance.

Links and Resources

• Caravan Website: https://caravanhealth.com/
  • About the Rura Risk-Free Solution for Rural ACO participants: https://caravanhealth.com/rural/
  • Am I Rural? Webpage for providers to determine if they qualify as rural: https://caravanhealth.com/am-i-rural/
  • See the Caravan Webinars page for more educational sessions and info https://caravanhealth.com/thought-leadership/webinars/
• Twitter: @CaravanHealth
• Health Affairs: Payment Reform In Transition—Scaling ACOs For Success by Lynn Barr, Anna Loengard, LeeAnn Hastings and Tim Gronniger.

Check out my new podcast collaboration with The Infection Prevention Strategy (TIPS): https://deepdive.tips/