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There has been great progress lately on reforming healthcare and making the US healthcare system a paragon of better quality care – where the care is provided and paid for in a smarter way. A decade ago, there were few significant efforts to improve care and reduce costs. Today, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have largely led the initiative of aligning incentives, improving the health system and implement the best care management strategies and leading healthcare into a dawn of value-based care. CMS has launched more than 30 new payment models in the past six years, and Medicare exceeded the goal to tie more than 30% of fee-for-service payments to alternative payment models by the end of 2016 and is now on the path to reach 50% by the end of 2018.

Ask an average person walking down the streets what do they think of healthcare. The answers will range from exceedingly costly to mediocre quality of care. Maybe some would hope for a ground-breaking innovation or a vaccine for an incurable disease. But everyone, whether patients or physicians, nurses or executives, would agree on encouraging the push towards value-based care and making healthcare more than just an in-and-out operation in a brick-and-mortar structure.

Around two decades ago, health care in the United States cost an average of $2800 per person. Ten years later, that figure had shot up to $4700 per person. Over the years, the cost of health care has risen as high as $10,345. At a time when the perceived value of care had dropped down, value-based reimbursement came up on the landscape. The days of siloed health systems, fragmented care management and skyrocketing costs are numbered; only because value-based care is becoming a mainstay today. There are several innovations on the block, amazing new ways of combining technology with care and a dream of a consolidated, unified health care- a bright, optimistic outlook ahead.

Stepping into an unknown territory comes with its own set of apprehensions and fears. The same goes for the providers who are or will be transitioning from a fee-for-volume to a value-based system of care. Providers are encouraged to focus on streamlining operations, optimizing technology and improving patient communication and making the clinical changes necessary to transform the way they provide care. However, value-based care is still in its infancy and its adoption has been slower than expected, owing to lurking doubts, questions, and misconceptions. How can providers not only adopt VBC but also succeed in providing quality care?

Transitioning from fee-for-service to value-based care in healthcare has been one of the most important industry-wide initiatives over the past few years. And as physicians are no less than the anchors that hold the ship of healthcare in place, they would be affected greatly by the changes in healthcare, and have a great deal of impact on how care is delivered to the masses. However, according to a survey of executives and decision-makers of healthcare organizations conducted in 2016, 94% of them admitted to being on the path to value-based care, yet only 27% of them were actually on a significant stage- a slow change from the numbers in 2015.

What exactly is Value-based care? This question has been looming in the healthcare space for a long time, and there has been no single definition. In simple terms, it is the shift from quantity to quality regarding delivering health care. This means a conscious effort on the part of providers to avoid truckloads of tests, treatments and medicines and the care provided by hospitals, doctors and physicians will be measured based on its value and not its volume.