Starling Physicians Deliver “Average” Value

As employers, Starling Physicians’ partners are acutely aware of the rising cost of care they must shoulder for employees and dependents.  We need the reassurance that the care we pay for is beneficial to our employees, and is as cost-effective as possible for our bottom line.  Employers all around the United States have the same response to the growing proportion of their expenses devoted to health benefits, and they have been encouraging health plans to measure the “value” – health outcomes achieved per dollar spent – of the care their employees receive from providers.

At the same time, providers across the country, including many in CT, who pride themselves on the high quality, cost-effective care they provide to their patients, want to be recognized if they do a better job on one or both of those measures.  Health plans (and Medicare) have responded by adopting measures of quality endorsed by physicians’ professional societies coupled with measures of “cost” that reflect the total number and types of services delivered during an episode of care, as well as the unit prices of those services, where applicable.

In 2015, Medicare published the 2014 results of this value equation for all practices participating in traditional Medicare. Both the Grove Hill and CMG branches were “average”.  That’s a fine starting point, but as discussed in a previous posting, Medicare compensation will stay flat for practices that remain average, will rise for practices that perform better than average, and will decline for those who do worse than average.  Starling Physicians wants to be on the winning side of that moving average, and we will be devoting attention and resources to getting there over the next few years.