Recorded Session from the AHIP 2022
The Technology and Teams Driving Value-Based Transformation

When I think about what makes value-based care successful, it’s a pretty simple framework: people, process, and technology.

At the AHIP conference in Las Vegas, I was pleased to moderate an insightful session about The Technology and Teams Driving Value-Based Transformation with two of our partners. Malia Read, Vice President of Provider Performance Management of Anthem, and Lisa White, Director of Value-Based Partner Transformation at Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, joined me to discuss how to encourage providers to engage in value-based care — through contracting, design, management, technology, and more.

Hearing from two exceptional leaders at powerhouse health plans reinforced my belief that a simple framework is what providers need to embrace value-based care. Get rid of the complexity. Don’t have too many buttons, clicks, or portals. Answer questions from providers clearly and concisely — and be available to answer them. If you focus on forming relationships (instead of only focusing on the mechanics), you’ll be seen as a partner that can inspire lasting change in how providers deliver care.

A few key learnings from our session:

Don’t make value-based contracts so complicated

Think about how to make it simple for your provider partners to follow and understand contracts.

“The more variation you have, the more different types [of contracts] you have — it creates a lot of complications for your people, your processes, and your technologies,” says Read. “If I could wave a magic wand, I would have a menu of options for our value-based care products with small deviations. That way, I could build technology that supports that without a lot of manual intervention.”

Simplify your value-based platform

It’s important to make sure the technology platform you’re using is simple enough so that anyone can understand the story the patient’s data tells them — and know how to take action. 

Today, many providers must go to multiple portals to get different data feeds from their health plan partners, stitch it together, then do the work on their own to find the proverbial “needle in the haystack” in terms of actually actionable insights.

“Providers don’t want to go to seven different platforms to get their information, pull it down, and cull it together and run it through Excel,” says Read. “They want to go to one place for all lines of business and understand exactly how they’re performing within that.”

Focus on creating a trusting relationship with provider partners in value-based programs

For providers to trust health insurance companies, stop telling them what you need them to do and rather ask them what they need you to do. For example, Read says she encourages providers to share their questions or concerns.

She says she’ll tell providers, ‘You have my phone number. You have my email. If I’m not meeting your expectations, please call me.’ And so far, that has resonated very well because it goes back to that trusting relationship to say, ‘This is my commitment to you. This is my roadmap. This is my timeline. I will be in touch with you on a regular basis to make sure you understand it.’

This recap only highlights a few key nuggets of wisdom from our discussion. If you’d like to watch the full session for more in-depth details on each of these tactics, you can access the recording here. 

Looking ahead with Clarify Health 

We want to extend our gratitude to Malia Read and Lisa White, two people who live and breathe value-based care, for sharing their thoughts on this topic. We love nothing more than hearing from people on the frontlines who remind us that when we all work together, we can make healthcare better for all.

We know that entering into a successful value-based care model and scaling a program can seem overwhelming. But we’re here to make things easy. We are the only end-to-end, unified software that digitizes value-based contracts and connects clinical performance and financial impact to boost payer-provider collaboration and transparency. 

About the panel: 

Malia Read
Vice President, Provider Performance Management, Anthem, Inc.

With almost 20 years of experience in the payer space, Malia has worked across Medicare, Commercial and Specialty lines of business. She now leads Provider Performance Management for Anthem’s Value-Based Services team.

Malia focuses her efforts on improving outcomes for members by providing actionable and insightful data when they need it and how they want it. Leveraging provider feedback, she is leading Anthem’s efforts to create the next-generation approach to maximizing results through data and advanced analytics.

Lisa White
Director, Value-Based Partner Transformation, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey

Lisa White, Director, Value-Based Partner Transformation, is an innovator and change agent for all value-based programming at Horizon BCBS NJ. Lisa is entrusted with bringing forth the right mix of initiatives and accountabilities to serve all plan stakeholders in Commercial, MA, and Medicaid lines of business. Her career successes include leadership in long-term care, pharmacy, Medicaid and Commercial health plans. With an M.S. in Patient Safety Leadership, Lisa brings a human factors engineering and LEAN/Six Sigma focus to all program features and enhancements that are undertaken. Outside of Horizon BCBS NJ, Lisa invests herself in efforts around Intimate Partner Violence and ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) that shape health across a lifetime.

Chuck Feerick
VP, Payer Solutions, Clarify Health 

Chuck Feerick leads Payer Solutions at Clarify Health, focusing on Payer product strategy and roadmap, and commercial growth. Prior to Clarify, Chuck was Director of Innovation at Anthem, Inc. and has worked in the healthcare industry for over 12 years, ranging from plan operations at large national insurers, building and launching full-risk health plans, and working in healthcare innovation consulting.