Report: Value-based care improves quality, health for employers

UnitedHealthcare released its second annual report detailing how the continued shift to a value-based health care system is encouraging better health and better care, and putting greater focus on the total cost of care. According to the study, UnitedHealthcare is seeing significant advances in people’s health behaviors, better coordination of care among physicians and facilities and cost savings with care providers who have implemented value-based arrangements. 

The data is based on the 110,000 physicians and 1,100 hospitals engaged in a value-based relationship with UnitedHealthcare, and the 15 million UnitedHealthcare members who sought care from those providers in 2017. 

These arrangements focus on quality and using incentives to reward better health and lower costs, rather than reimbursing care providers based solely on the volume of services delivered. Among the report’s key findings: 

Better Health

• Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) serving employer-sponsored plan participants perform better than non-ACOs on 87 percent of the quality metrics tracked.

• Top ACO’s closed 76 percent of open care opportunities

• Eight percent higher cancer screenings compliance among ACO’s than non-ACO’s 

Better Care

• UnitedHealthcare and care providers in value-based relationships worked together to identify and close 50 million gaps in care from 2013 through 2017.

• ACO’s show 6 percent decrease year over year in ER escalations to inpatient

Lower Costs

• Hospital admission rates are 17 percent lower for ACOs serving employer-sponsored and individual plan participants compared to non-ACOs. 

• ACO’s have 14 percent fewer ER admissions than non-ACOs

To lean more, and to download a copy of the report, please visit the UnitedHealthcare Value-Based Care website.