Regence leaders: Members get better care from value-based providers

Main photo: Dr. Drew Oliveira (left) and Kristie Putnam (center) of Regence, with Danielle Huston of Propel Insurance

Regence is helping lead a sea change in health care, paying providers not based on the amount of care they provide but on what matters most to members: quality and results. 

Two senior leaders from the health insurer – Kristie Putnam, vice president for provider partnership innovation, and Dr. Drew Oliveira, senior executive medical director – talked about this new way to pay for health care recently on The Checkup, a podcast hosted by Danielle Huston of Propel Insurance.  

Traditionally, U.S. health care payment models are based on “fee for service,” in which providers were paid based on the quantity of the care they provided. The future is “value-based care,” Putnam and Oliveira said. Value-based care improves how Regence and doctors work together to serve people’s health care needs. And it gives Regence members what they want: better, simpler and more affordable care.

Under value-based care, Regence works collaboratively with providers, Putnam said. Together they share data, resources and expertise to drive high-value care that improves cost and quality. Providers are incentivized to look holistically at the full end-to-end continuum of care.

“In these (value-based) arrangements we want to pay out every single dollar those providers can earn because these models align our incentives as a payer to the incentives as a provider,” Putnam said. “For every dollar we pay out, it’s benefiting the payer, it’s benefiting the provider, and most importantly, it’s benefiting the member because they’re getting access to that better quality, cost, and experience.”

Regence has years of experience to show that value-based care works, Putnam and Oliveira said. The company has implemented more than 75 value-based agreements (VBAs) with providers across its 4-state footprint of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Utah.

Regence members in value-based agreements are more than twice as satisfied as those who get care from a non-VBA provider. Better coordination and care in value-based agreements lead to fewer unnecessary medical appointments, diagnoses and treatments, all resulting in lower member out-of-pocket costs.

Thirty six percent of Regence’s total payments each year are in value-based agreements, and that number should only grow, Putnam and Oliveira said.

Listen to the Propel podcast with Putnam and Oliveira below, or read a transcript.