by Jonathan Hart, MD MBA
In the past couple of blog entries, we’ve been exploring the intersections of the fee-for-service (FFS) and value-based care (VBC) healthcare delivery models in the physician’s office. Last time, annual wellness and preventive services were discussed. In this entry we’ll look at how closure of HEDIS® measures not only helps the patient but benefits the practice, regardless of where you stand on the FFS-to-VBC continuum.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching, often unanticipated consequences across every facet of life, from commerce and labor to social life and education. Unsurprisingly, it has also impacted health care; however, its influence has ranged far beyond debates over vaccines and mask mandates.
Much of the population has had to deal with inadequate advance care planning (ACP). Described by the NIH as the process of learning about, considering, and communicating preferences regarding the decisions that need to be made in an emergency or end of life situation1, ACP is generally considered the realm of the elderly and chronically infirm. The COVID-19 pandemic brought that perspective into sharp contrast, though, as it unselectively ravaged both the young and old, healthy and chronically ill. Even frontline health care personnel weren’t spared as COVID-19 tore through the masses, highlighting the need for increased awareness and implementation of ACP.
It is no secret that healthcare has been in crisis — a staffing crisis. While the pandemic certainly exacerbated the situation, present workloads, emerging patterns contrary to traditional practice, and burnout are only the latest in a long line of factors straining the healthcare workforce.
Providers, labor experts, and public health entities alike have been decrying a looming and extended shortage of healthcare workers for over two decades1. Specifically, primary care providers and nurses have been the subject of many workforce studies, in an attempt to understand and mitigate the consequences of understaffing, but they do not represent the full impact of healthcare staffing shortages.