Beaumont Health VP of Managed Care on Driving Value in the Pandemic

Ryan Catignani, vice president of managed care and accountable care services at Beaumont Health, told HealthLeaders how the pandemic has affected the organization's value-based care efforts.

Beaumont Health's vice president of managed care and accountable care services said there will be opportunities presented by the pandemic for healthcare organizations and employers to drive towards a value-based care system.

On Tuesday afternoon, Ryan Catignani participated in a panel entitled 'Disrupting for Value' at the National Alliance Leadership Summits 2020.

Discussing the topic with HealthLeaders, Catignani said that insurers and employer groups are likely going to reevaluate healthcare services and benefits and potentially hasten the transition to paying for value while embracing different types of payment reforms.

Below are some takeaways from Catignani on the topic of value-based care and how the pandemic will affect the ongoing shift away from the fee-for-service model.

HL: What has Beaumont Health done in response to the pandemic as it relates to its value-based initiatives?

Catignani: At Beaumont Health, we've been in the direct-to-employer space now for about two years. We launched our Beaumont Employer Services team with exactly that purpose in mind: to go directly to the employer community, to hear directly from them about what their issues are, what their pain points are, where their hotspots are in terms of cost and utilization around the health benefits, and be able to create customized solutions payer-by-payer.

Paying for value certainly has been around for a long time; 'the reopening of America,' so to speak, is going to cause a lot of employer groups and insurers to rethink paying for value and how to double down on that proposition again. At Beaumont, we've been doing this for a long time. We have an accountable care organization (ACO) that's been in the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) for the better part of six years, just transitioning into the enhanced track last July.

We've been in surplus every year that we've been in the program and last year we were named the number one ACO in the state of Michigan and we ranked in the top five in the country around savings rate. Additionally, the system participates in various risk sharing programs, some with local private payers and others with larger, traditional Medicare programs like MSSP.

HL: What are some of your specific goals for either expanding the Employer Services program and how is that different now in the midst of a pandemic?

Catignani: Fundamentally, at the heart of the Beaumont Employer Services team is our ability to be nimble, flexible, and turn on a dime. The pandemic wasn't on anyone's mind in January or February, but the Employer Services team quickly expanded our suite of services to include COVID-19 testing; both PCR molecular [diagnostic] testing and the antibody testing. Beaumont is undertaking the nation's largest research study around COVID-19 antibody testing. We did that with our own employees and our employee-affiliated physicians.

At same time, we've been able to take our antibody testing out into the employer community. That's become a powerful tool for employer groups as they reopen, to make their employees feel safer and more comfortable returning to work. The outbreak has forced us to expand the program and create new programs to offer to employers. When we get back to our core suite of services, we are going to continue to look at anything from the transactional [side]: flu shot clinics, employee drug screenings, wellness, and physicals. We are also going to look at true payment reform and bundled payments so we can look at this as a new way for employers and payers to purchase healthcare services while challenging the providers to look at episodic care and eliminate waste.

Jack O'Brien is the Content Team Lead and Finance Editor at HealthLeaders, an HCPro brand.

Photo credit: Royal Oak, Mich./USA-7/25/19: Beaumont Hospital sign on Woodward Ave. in suburban Detroit. / Editorial credit: Daniel J. Macy / Shutterstock.com