In honor of Thanksgiving, we wanted to express our gratitude towards the movements in healthcare that we are most thankful for. Let’s dive right in!‍

Value-based care.

If you’ve been following us for a while, it should be no surprise that we love value-based care. Our Head of Marketing & Brand Strategy even completed a Masters of Science in Healthcare Transformation from the Value Institute for Health and Care! For those unfamiliar, value-based care is a healthcare delivery model that pays providers based on patient health outcomes, rather than services rendered (aka the fee-for-service model.) With value-based care, providers are incentivized to improve a patient’s health instead of pushing multiple treatments in order to get paid. This has multiple benefits, such as:

• Reducing overall healthcare costs.
• Eliminating overutilization.
• Allowing providers to get back to the point of medicine (caring for patients).
• Improving care outcomes for patients.

What’s not to like? In addition to being thankful for value-based care as a movement, we’re also thankful for the people that continue to advocate for this system and who implement it. And of course, a huge thanks has to be given to the creators of value-based care. We actually had the pleasure of Dr. Elizabeth Teisberg, co-creator of value-based care, joining us for a podcast episode to talk all about it. Check it out below!

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‍Direct primary care.

Another movement in healthcare that we’ve talked about a lot is direct primary care. DPC operates like a subscription service. Patients pay a monthly, quarterly, or annual fee to have access to their doctor at any time and for almost all services. Just as you pay a monthly fee to watch your favorite shows on Hulu or Netflix, you can pay a subscription service to your doctor. This covers primary care services such as clinical or laboratory services, consultative services, care coordination, and comprehensive care management. We’re thankful for DPC because:

• It’s helping to make price transparency in healthcare more common.
• When patients don’t have to worry about a co-pay every visit or a surprise bill because their appointment was a “specialty” visit, they’re more likely to visit their provider more often. This leads to better health outcomes.
• For those who are unemployed or work part-time, direct primary care is an affordable way to get quality healthcare despite job status.
• DPCs get to spend more time with patients and have less administrative work.

We’re also thankful for the companies that help physicians to transition to a direct primary care model and who help DPCs to be successful, such as Freedom Healthworks! You can listen to our podcast episode on DPC with Chris Habig, CEO/Co Founder of Freedom Healthworks and Host of the Healthcare Americana podcast below:

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Ambulatory surgical centers.

According to the ASCA Association, “ASCs are highly regulated healthcare facilities that provide outpatient surgery and preventive care. For many healthcare procedures, ASCs are the right choice for the right patients at the right price.” We’re thankful for ASCs that offer upfront pricing, which greatly contributes to the efforts of making price transparency more widespread and common. ASCs are also often far more affordable for patients with high out-of-pocket costs and employers looking to provide quality care at a reasonable price. Procedures done in ASCs are 144% less than the average price for common procedures done in hospitals’ outpatient departments. These facilities can also help lower healthcare costs for TPAs, health plans, health shares, and limited/defined benefit medical plans. One study found that if half of all routine hip and knee replacements were conducted in ASCs, employers would save $2 billion annually. 

If you want to learn more about ASCs, check out the podcast episode below featuring Dr. Keith Smith, co-founder and medical director of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma and Sean Kelley, President of Texas Free Market Surgery:

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Plenty to be thankful for.

Healthcare is a complicated system that often leaves people frustrated, scared, and cynical. And there are many deeply rooted policies and methods in healthcare that do more harm than good. But, there are many companies, movements, and innovations (including the ones in this blog) that are working to make healthcare easier to navigate, access, and afford. And for those, we are extremely grateful. It helps us to push forward in our mission to make healthcare easy to find, easy to understand, and easier to afford.