While 2014 is ending with evidence of the dramatic gains in health coverage, a more subtle revolution is occurring in how health care is delivered. Using new authorities created by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), in partnership with health care providers, payers, and patients, we have made significant advances in getting better care at lower costs by changing the incentives for the way care is given and putting more information in the hands of health care providers and patients.
Before the ACA, most of the health care system had incentives to do more -- more tests, more procedures, more visits to the doctor meant more money for hospitals and physicians. Now, through a series of innovative approaches, these incentives are changing and health care providers are being paid based on the quality and efficiency -- not quantity -- of the care they give. This practice, known as “value based purchasing,” and other efforts under the ACA to create systems where doctors help coordinate care for patients to avoid hospital readmissions and get patients the care they need on sooner. These systems also are putting in place safeguards to avoid simple mistakes that that have caused many Americans to pick up infections or to suffer other medical complications when they went into a hospital for care in the past.
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