In a new healthcare model, successful management of referrals is one of the imperatives in a bid for success of rapidly evolving move for value-based care and eventual risk. Meanwhile, a coherent referral management strategy can help reduce costs by emphasizing the value of referrals, thereby aiding to alleviate concerns of providers regarding their eventual move to a value-focused care model.
In this context, in a HIMSS20 digital presentation, executive vice president at Privia Health highlighted the efforts the company is making to help providers better manage their referrals. The efforts highlighted are regardless of starting point of providers on the road to value-based care.
Privia Health carries out operations for Mid-Atlantic Accountable Care Organization – an independent network of physicians comprising 11, 00+ caregivers. Of this, about 70% provide primary care, and the remaining 30% practice as specialists. Collectively, these caregivers tend to roughly serve 590,000 patients.
“As a first step, for successful referral management, is to engage physicians in a shared vision,” stated the executive vice president at Privia Health. The company managing referrals pays to the service provider who understands the value of referrals, and tend to align values from that, the executive further added.
Integration of Referral Management with EHR to Pave Way for its Success
Nonetheless, one way to foster the engagement is to integrate referral management into existing workflows of physicians. Therefore, in this way, by attaching the process into the electronic health record, it becomes a natural component of physicians’ day-to-day work. Furthermore, this removes the need of physicians to toggle between disparate programs, which prevents to distribute their focus and attention.
Meanwhile, Privia’s approach works as physicians run the show themselves. And, physician-to-physician governance is also a reason for the program to work, according to the executive at Privia Health.