Rising healthcare costs affect employers who provide insurance coverage for their employees as well as those organizations that sponsor on-site and off-site health clinics. The move toward value-based care that is trending in primary care is being noticed by many companies. As a result, employer health clinics and value-based care are becoming more closely aligned, to the benefit of all involved.

Value-based care is a delivery model in which providers are paid based on outcomes rather than the number of visits. Providers are rewarded financially for helping their patients improve their health so they can live healthier lives. For patients with chronic illnesses, value-based care is focused on reducing the effects and incidence. The value is derived from measuring health outcomes against the cost of delivering those outcomes.

The connection between employer health clinics and value-based care is effective in influencing employees’ health and finances in a number of ways, including:

• Promoting better health, taking a proactive approach by preventing chronic disease from progressing and helping individuals recover more quickly from illness and injury.
• Engaging employees in their own health. Digital solutions offer individuals the opportunity to track their own weight, physical activity, and data such as blood sugar levels, and that encourages them to take more control of their own health outcomes.
• Reducing ineffective treatments by emphasizing quality over quantity. Employees are assured they’re receiving evidence-based care and not being subjected to needless procedures or taking unnecessary medications.
• Lower costs for employees and their employers. Employees spend less money on provider visits, tests, and procedures as well as on prescription drug costs.
• Encouraging healthier habits focused on prevention, as value-based care engages individuals in their own health in a more positive way. Employers participate by rewarding employees for healthier habits such as healthy eating, exercising, and quitting smoking.

Elation Health is fixing the broken economics of primary care for practices that are evolving and thriving, earning three times more reimbursement, and innovating new care models. Elation’s solutions enable independent providers to own their key role in healthcare.

Employer health clinics and value-based care are intrinsically linked in the goal to improve employee health and reduce costs for employees and their employers. Employers can better design their clinic benefits to exercise more control over their spending and to create more value for their organization and their employees. Strategies include:

• Strategic engagement with employer health clinic providers. When the employer negotiates value guarantees with the provider, it can hold the provider accountable for decreasing low-value care and increasing high-value care.
• Advocating for value-based rate adjustments. The shift to value-based care is moving forward but the fee-for-service system remains the dominant form of healthcare reimbursement. Employers still have the ability to create value within the system by negotiating contracts that reward value-based care.
• Lowering cost-sharing by incentivizing high-value clinical services. Employers can keep cost-sharing low by taking advantage of value-based care models that waive deductibles and lower co-pays for high-value services.

The benefits of a value-based healthcare system extend to employer health clinics, employees, payers, suppliers, and society as a whole.