Addressing Low-Value Care in the Time of COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has had an enormous economic impact that is being felt across our communities, businesses and the overall health care system. It has placed a larger spotlight on the challenges with how our health care system allocates resources and ensures spending is focused on interventions that yield the most value for patients.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had an enormous economic impact that is being felt across our communities, businesses and the overall health care system. It has placed a larger spotlight on the challenges with how our health care system allocates resources and ensures spending is focused on interventions that yield the most value for patients.
To improve how we optimize our health care resources, a good first step is to identify treatments and services that are inefficient, increase costs and have little or no benefit for patients (or even cause harm in some cases). Known as “low-value care,” these services and treatments – such as the use of Vitamin D screening tests and MRIs for low-back pain -- cost our health care system more than $340 billion in wasted spending each year.
It’s time for us to take that step and prioritize high-value care at a time when health care costs are reaching new levels. That’s why the Going Below the Surface (GBTS) Forum developed the Roadmap for Addressing Low-Value Care, a step-by-step guide to assist health care stakeholders in determining opportunities to address unnecessary care and improve patient outcomes. The GBTS Forum – a group of experts representing payers, provider groups and patient advocacy organizations – designed the guide to spotlight the key considerations stakeholders should note in their efforts to reduce spending and utilization of low-value treatments and services. The Roadmap outlines key goals, questions and tactics to consider and provides stakeholder-specific examples for potential interventions to reduce low-value care. This document is informed by both real-world experience and academic expertise of a GBTS Forum task force.
Increasing our focus on high-value care is a meaningful step in our efforts to overcome the financial challenges associated with COVID-19. We encourage organizations across the health care industry to utilize our new resource and collaborate to identify unnecessary costs on products and services that can limit patient outcomes. Addressing these inefficiencies now could ensure more patients receive optimal care at this critical time.
To learn more, please register now for GBTS Forum partner AMGA’s (American Medical Group Association) webinar on August 5 at 2 pm ET to hear experts from AMGA, the National Pharmaceutical Council, HealthcarePartners Care Group and Intermountain Medical Group discuss their experiences and the Roadmap for Addressing Low-Value Care.
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