{"id":2449652,"date":"2019-10-08T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-09T03:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=314028"},"modified":"2019-10-08T21:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-10-09T03:00:00","slug":"roaring-fork-valley-alliance-aims-for-health-care-transformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/roaring-fork-valley-alliance-aims-for-health-care-transformation\/","title":{"rendered":"Roaring Fork Valley alliance aims for health care transformation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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An effort by a coalition of Roaring Fork Valley employers to provide better and more affordable health care to their employees on a long-term basis is about to come to life starting next year.<\/p>\n

And provided the Valley Health Alliance works as advertised, organizers hope to be able to offer the paradigm-shifting model to small businesses throughout the area starting in 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe beauty of what we\u2019re doing is the quality of care (we aim to provide),\u201d said Chris McDowell, executive director of the Valley Health Alliance. \u201cI think you will start seeing a lot of fruit for the work we\u2019ve been doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The alliance \u2014 which includes Pitkin County, the city of Aspen, the Aspen Skiing Co., Aspen Valley Hospital, Valley View Hospital and Mountain Family Health Centers \u2014 aims for nothing less than a transformation of the standard U.S. health care model, said Dave Ressler, CEO at Aspen Valley Hospital. That means rather than focusing on a model that emphasizes the financial bottom line, hospitals and providers will concentrate on keeping communities healthy.<\/p>\n

\u201c(It\u2019s) a shift from volume to value,\u201d Ressler said. \u201cIt\u2019s a whole new world for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pitkin County Manager Jon Peacock said part of the idea is to develop a series of incentives that reward providers for keeping people healthy. That can include rewards for successfully managing people\u2019s chronic conditions such as diabetes or obesity, McDowell said.<\/p>\n

\u201c(The idea is) to transform how health care not only is delivered, but how it is paid for and how to make quality and affordable health care a sustainable commodity in our community,\u201d Peacock said.<\/p>\n

One of the keys to the new system is transparency, Ressler said. Sharing information about prices for services and medicine and a patient\u2019s past data and current clinical information \u2014 while also maintaining legal privacy standards \u2014 is essential to the effort, he said.<\/p>\n

That spirit of sharing is also present in the way Aspen Valley Hospital and Valley View Hospital work together, Ressler said. Rather than perceiving each other as rivals under the volume-based model, the two hospitals work collaboratively so as not to duplicate expensive services that contribute to increasing area health care costs, he said.<\/p>\n

The Valley Health Alliance includes about 6,500 Roaring Fork Valley employees \u2014 roughly 20% of the valley workforce \u2014 who live between Aspen and Parachute, McDowell said. Approximately 500 of those employees are responsible for a majority of the health care claims filed by the organizations, he said.<\/p>\n

There are about 15 private, primary care medical practices between Aspen and Glenwood Springs, all of which are \u201cat the table\u201d talking to the VHA about transformation to a value-based model, McDowell said.<\/p>\n

The employees of the six VHA members will begin receiving benefits under the new plan starting Jan. 1. Next year will serve as a \u201cbenchmark year\u201d for the program, which will establish data baselines for the program, McDowell said. During that time, VHA officials also will begin looking at offering the network they built to small businesses in the Roaring Fork Valley starting in 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe intend to create a product for small businesses \u2026\u201d Ressler said. \u201cWe will adapt the VHA to create a second tier for those small employers.\u201d<\/p>\n

In order for that to happen, the alliance must find an insurance company to contract with, Ressler said. However, it can\u2019t be just any insurance company. The alliance will look for an insurer willing to share claims data, which is unusual, Ressler said.<\/p>\n

\u201c(We need to know) why are prices the way they are,\u201d he said. \u201cYou will see transparency in the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

The VHA effort echoes a similar program up and running in Summit County called the Peak Health Alliance<\/a>. That alliance features a number of area employers who banded together to negotiate lower health insurance prices, Peacock said.<\/p>\n

Commissioner Patti Clapper on Tuesday wanted to know why Pitkin County\u2019s program is not yet available, why it has taken so long to get going and why it won\u2019t be available to small businesses until 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo years out is difficult for some people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Peacock, a former Mesa County manager, said he\u2019s attempted in the past to create health care networks where groups band together and hire and pay doctors themselves or use their collective power to negotiate better rates. The problem is those alliances only work for a year or two before they fall apart, he said.<\/p>\n

The VHA is different because officials have taken a long time to create an infrastructure that is built to last, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really want to make whatever we create sustainable,\u201d Peacock said. \u201cWe\u2019ve done the (research and development) on what works and what doesn\u2019t. We\u2019re ready now to bring that infrastructure forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

jauslander@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An effort by a coalition of Roaring Fork Valley employers to provide better and more affordable health care to their employees on a long-term basis is about to come to life starting next year. And provided the Valley Health Alliance works as advertised, organizers hope to be able to offer the paradigm-shifting model to small […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2449652","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-27 23:11:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2449652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2449652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2449652\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2449652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2449652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2449652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}