The Road to Meaningful Health Care Reform

Although a new health care reform law has been passed, the road to health care reform has just begun and much work still needs to be done. Health care reform legislation alone will not solve all the challenges facing our current health care system.

Independent Health is focused on creating new health care solutions to help achieve meaningful reform and improve quality, access and affordability of health care. We believe that meaningful health care reform must include focusing on the following four actions:

1.    Prevention and Wellness. Continue efforts to improve the populations' health with the goal of lowering rates of preventable illness. Encourage individuals to take greater personal responsibility for their health. Manage chronic disease more efficiently and effectively by implementing proven clinical strategies and eliminating variations in care based on the hospital, region or state in which care is provided.

One way that Independent Health is promoting the importance of prevention and wellness is by partnering with the Town of Amherst to offer the Healthy Living Program. The mission of this unique program is to improve the health of Town of Amherst employees and their families through communication initiatives and programs focused on creating awareness, promoting education and engaging individuals in healthier lifestyles.

2.    Payment Reform. Improve quality and efficiency by rewarding physicians, hospitals and other providers for quality and outcomes, rather than volume. Encourage a patient-centered model of coordinated care and an adherence to evidence-based medicine. Adjust Medicare and Medicaid fee-for-service payment systems.

3.    Improve Efficiency. Restrain and reduce wasteful and unnecessary spending across all sectors of the health care system. Eliminate medical care, tests and procedures that are redundant or add no value. Reduce the cost of doing business by addressing cost drivers in each sector and through common-sense improvements, workforce deployment and development, regulatory and medical liability reforms, and avoiding unneeded mandates.

4.    Embrace Technology. Accelerate the adoption and use of health information technology and electronic medical records, providing stakeholders with incentives to use them.

However, sustainable health care reform cannot be achieved by one entity alone. Rather, it is a collective responsibility that requires visionary leadership. As an employer, you can help by:

·        Becoming more educated and engaged in the health care debate. Visit www.independenthealth.com to learn more about the actions and opportunities to transform Western New York into a high-performing community by improving access to quality and affordable health care.

·        Speaking out against taxes, mandates and other measures that drive up costs at the state and federal levels. Currently, 5 percent of every premium dollar that Independent Health receives goes toward covering 51 different mandates imposed by New York state.

·        Encouraging our hospital systems and providers to adopt new reimbursement models and eliminate redundancies in services and specialties.

·        Getting involved in the P² Collaborative of Western New York and other community-wide efforts to improve health.

Enacting meaningful health reform requires a careful and balanced approach to fiscal prudence, accompanied by efforts to contain costs, increase savings, and enhance efficiencies. Such investments will enable transformational changes to be achieved - and those changes will ultimately place Western New York and our nation on a path toward greater financial and health care security.