Humana recently came out with their Value-based Care Report. The subhead is Physician Progress and Patient Outcomes. It’s a very fancy report with a lot of pages and graphics, and this impressive format definitely caught the attention of some of our industry. I read one blog post really keying in on one sort of depressing aspect of the report, namely, that Humana’s value-based care (VBC) program saved a rounding error of 0.4% over their non-VBC program.
I wanted to get an expert’s take on this report and the reaction to the report and could think of no better person than Steve Blumberg, who has worked in value-based care delivery on the provider and on the payer side.
Steve Blumberg, MBA, is the VP of practice transformation for GuideWell Health, a subsidiary of GuideWell.
This Humana report, if you’d like to see it for yourself, can be found at digital.humana.com/VBCReport.
You can learn more at guidewell.com.
Steven Blumberg serves as vice president, practice transformation, for GuideWell Health. In this role, he is responsible for developing and implementing strategies for the further establishment of a high-quality, economically effective clinical system across Florida. He also provides guidance on value-based care and population health models.
Prior to joining GuideWell in June 2019, Blumberg served as vice president for value-based care at Baptist Health South Florida, where he led the strategy and implementation for Baptist’s population health and value-based care efforts. Prior to that, he was senior vice president and executive director of AtlantiCare Health Solutions, the New Jersey division of the Geisinger Health System, where he was responsible for population health, the organization’s provider physician group, and home care and hospice continuum services.
Earlier in his career, he was chief planning and business development officer at UHealth–The University of Miami Health System. Blumberg also held leadership roles at UF Health–Shands Healthcare and Baptist Health Jacksonville.
Blumberg has been active in community and professional organizations, including serving on the boards of the Ronald McDonald House, Community Hospice, and the Northeast Florida Health Planning Council. He has also served nationally on the Premier Population Health Steering Group and on the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Baldrige Board of Examiners.
Blumberg holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and marketing from the University of Florida and a Master of Business Administration from Florida State University. He is a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.
02:11 Does value-based care really reduce cost, according to the Humana report?
03:02 Why we should look at outcomes and not just raw costs.
04:06 Is the impact of a value-based model that much better than a fee-for-service model during COVID?
04:38 “At the end of the day, I think … the lack of a cost difference is notable, but one must think there’s more to it than that.”
05:44 “You have to look at these things over time.”
06:02 “I think in health care we’ve been looking for the ‘what will save 10%’ solutions … and there’s just no such animal.”