It's Time for Congress to Make Integrated Care Central to the Nation's Patient Experience

The primary objective of our health care system is to ensure that quality health care is readily accessible for patients. However, as health care becomes increasingly entangled in a web of networks, insurers, and providers, the patient’s best interest can get lost.

As a physician overseeing a network of dedicated health care professionals, I know firsthand that we can do better. But, the physician community can’t do this on our own. We need Congress and the administration to advance payment reform policies that strengthen integrated care models that are already showing great promise.

It is imperative that every member of the health care community — from doctors and patients to providers, insurers and policymakers — work to bring the patient back to the forefront. Not until our health care system — and its payment policies — put the patient first by incentivizing quality and improving the patient experience can our nation’s health care system fully flourish.

My vantage point in this complicated health care world has allowed me to witness what works best from the front lines of care. I believe we must reinvent individualized care delivery on a mass scale to ensure quality access for all. This all begins with practical and effective models that work for patients. And these models already exist today.

Health care reform centers around two key concepts. The first is an effective health care delivery model attaching physician incentives to wellness, prevention, and avoidance or delayed complications of illness, or high cost events. The model we at HealthCare Partners employ is successful and can be adapted nationwide. Under our system, primary care doctors and specialists are compensated with a salary and/or capitation plus a bonus based on quality metrics and patient satisfaction.