Our Publications

Advancing Equity Versus Quality In Population-Based Models: Lessons From The New Proposed Rule

This article is in the Health Affairs Forefront series, Accountable Care for Population Health, featuring analysis and discussion of how to understand, design, support, and measure patient-centered, cost-efficient care under the umbrella of accountable care. This article is written by Joshua Liao and Amol Navathe in response to the latest developments in policy and research affecting accountable care. 

Policy Design Tools for Achieving Equity Through Value-Based Payment, Part 2

In part 2 of their Forefront series, Navathe et al describe in what ways value-based payment programs could be designed to focus explicitly on addressing inequities, improving on historical precedent and ushering in a generation of payment models that promote health equity in the US. However, activity does not necessarily equal progress, and policy makers must implement change in a systematic, coordinated way to advance equity through payment reform. They can begin doing so by identifying equity challenges and developing a set of policy tools for each value-based payment design consideration. The framework laid out in this two-part article provides a place to start.

Policy Design Tools For Achieving Equity Through Value-Based Payment, Part 1

In this Forefront article, Navathe et al describe the key design considerations in value-based payment models, including organizational participation, payment rules, and risk adjustment. Each pose equity implications, and policy makers can take steps to ensure that all three considerations are designed so that programs support health equity. Similar design tools for four additional considerations—performance measurement, spending targets, performance-based incentives, and care redesign—will be the focus of part 2 of article.

Characteristics of Hospitals and Physician Groups Participating in Bundled Payments for Care Improvement-Advanced Outpatient Spine Episodes

In this poster from the Academy Health Annual Conference, Ng et al present findings that Hospitals and physician groups that enroll in outpatient spine episodes tend to have higher baseline volumes of outpatient spine surgery.

Using Advanced Payments In Population-Based Models To Address Equity

This article is the latest in the Health Affairs Forefront series, Accountable Care for Population Health, featuring analysis and discussion of how to understand, design, support, and measure patient-centered, cost-efficient care under the umbrella of accountable care.

This article is written by Joshua Liao and Amol Navathe in response to the latest developments in policy and research affecting accountable care. Other authors will contribute to the series as well.

Additional articles will be published throughout 2023. Readers are encouraged to review the Call for Submissions for this series. 

Hospital Consolidation: The Rise of Geographically Distant Mergers

In this Viewpoint, Dr. Amol Navathe and John Connolly describe how and why cross-market mergers are different than prototypical within-market mergers in their effects on patients and communities, why the trend toward cross-market mergers may be accelerating, and future policy and research directions.

Performance of Physician Groups and Hospitals Participating in Bundled Payments Among Medicare Beneficiaries

This cohort study and difference-in-differences analysis of PGPs and hospital participation in BPCI found that bundled payments were associated with cost savings for surgical episodes for PGPs, and savings for both surgical and medical episodes for hospitals. Policy makers should consider the comparative performance of participant types when designing and evaluating bundled payment models.

The Path Ahead for Bundled Payments

This article discusses where bundled payment policy currently stands and what is likely ahead given trends over the last decade. 

Early Findings From Medicare’s End-Stage Renal Disease Treatment Choices Model

This work examines Medicare's End-Stage Renal Disease Treatment Choices (ETC) Model and reviews the efficacy of this model as policy implementation. 

Medicare’s Bundled Payment Models

A comment and response dialoguing with a recently published viewpoint suggesting that bundled payments represent a promising part of payment reform.