In an effort to control health care costs, many health care delivery organizations have agreed to contracts that incentivize the provision of high-quality care and penalize unnecessary or preventable health care utilization. Health care providers must adapt how they practice in response to this payment reform, often without the tools to understand how to meet quality standards and reduce their costs or utilization patterns. Population health management has emerged as a solution to the “pain points” — missed quality metrics or incentives that affect the amount a health care institution is paid — associated with payment reform. Population health management assesses the health outcomes that exist within a defined population and asks what medical, social, and civil legal needs are affecting those outcomes. By identifying risks within the population and seeking to intervene before those risks become costly medical crises, health care providers can maintain or even improve the health of their patients while also reaping financial rewards for the health care delivery organization.
A new report released by the National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership examines two examples of payment reform pain points felt by health care institutions adapting to new reimbursement models, and the treatment of those pain points through collaboration with medical-legal partnerships (MLPs). This is followed by recommendations on how an MLP can become part of those population health management teams that are revolutionizing health care one population at a time, and the advantages of doing so, both for the health care institution and for the sustainability of the medical-legal partnership approach. Click here to download the report.