BETTER CARE FOR ARTHUR WAS JUST A PHONE CALL AWAY
Alternative Payment Models Help Medicare Patients Overcome Barriers to Care
Value-based care models pay hospitals and providers, in part, on the quality of services delivered and outcomes achieved. These models enable healthcare organizations like Baycare Health Partners in Springfield, Massachusetts to embed care managers in clinical practices. They perform home visits, making it more likely that the non-medical factors that affect a person’s health are addressed.
For healthcare providers nationwide, this kind of personal care is only possible because of Medicare’s alternative payment model program.
Arthur’s story:
After many unanswered calls and missed appointments, Tasneem showed up at Arthur’s house. Arthur told the care manager with Baycare Health Partners that he had trouble remembering appointments and keeping his life in order due to recent memory issues that he hadn’t told anyone about. He was afraid that if people knew about his challenges, they would put him in a nursing home.
Tasneem suggested looking at Arthur’s phone—a simple task that made a big difference.
Over 90 minutes, Tasneem sat with Arthur and deleted old voicemails, so new messages could be accepted. She taught him how to retrieve messages, adjust the volume on his phone, and confirmed that he could now answer the phone and hear messages. She added contact information so he could easily reach his providers and taught him how using the maps feature could help him get to his appointments.
She placed a new calendar on his refrigerator, marking key medical appointments.
She gave him a small whiteboard and wrote, “Check your recent cell phone calls and voicemails in the morning and at night before you go to bed.” She placed the whiteboard next to his favorite recliner and told him to never erase it.
The result? Arthur made it to his next medical appointments.
Because value-based care focuses on outcomes, healthcare organizations like Baycare help their patients be healthy, regardless of challenges they face. Without Congress’s continued support for value-based models, patients like Arthur may not get the care they need.
This patient story has been de-identified to protect patient privacy consistent with HIPAA – no real patient names are referenced, while the experience described reflects actual events.