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June 7, 2022

Symposium addresses CT’s broken healthcare system, need for payment reforms

Robert Storace / Hartford Business Journal Dr. John Rodis (far left), founder and president of Arista Health, helped moderate a discussion Friday on the shortage of healthcare workers in Connecticut. The panel discussion was one of several that were part of the 'Moving to Value Alliance' symposium. In addition to Rodis, from left to right are: Mandy Richards, executive vice president and chief nursing officer at Hartford Healthcare; Marcia Proto, executive director, CT League for Nursing and CT Center for Nursing Workforce and Terry Wang, partner, Regal Healthcare Capital Partners. Not shown are Lisa Rebeschi, associate dean and professor, Quinnipiac University School of Nursing. Rebeschi attended the discussion virtually.
By Robert Storace

Experts from various healthcare fields took part in five panel discussions at the Hartford Marriott Downtown on Friday ranging from transforming the industry to maternity care in the state.

The goal of the “Moving to Value Alliance” symposium, which was attended by about 160 people, was to address the status of the state’s healthcare system, which some panelists agreed is broken and needs to be fixed.

Stacey Richter, co-president of Aventria and QC-Health and host of an award-winning healthcare podcast, said there must be collaboration between all stakeholders in order to achieve better healthcare outcomes.

“Collaboration is essential to provide affordable care,” said Richter, who took part in an hour-long panel discussion called, “Finding Allies?: The Transformation Demands Strange Bedfellows.”

Richter said “care gaps are everywhere” and that “we need to get better at this.”

Richter said providers, payers, community benefit organizations, pharmacy benefit managers and pharmaceutical manufacturers need to collaborate.

“Patients are skipping their medical care because they are worried about the costs,” Richter said. “It’s costing many people to go bankrupt and medical stress. I am optimistic though. I think change is possible within the local market. You need to find like-minded people to collaborate with. I don’t know if it’s as easy on the national level as it’s too political, too profit-driven and too impersonal.”

Christin Deacon, principal/founder of VerSan Consulting, was the director of state health benefits for New Jersey at one time.

Deacon, echoing many panelists, said: “You must think outside the box for healthcare solutions. The box is the status quo. The box is increasing rebates and is not focusing on efficiency. We need to move away from the box.”

Deacon said the healthcare system needs to realign financial incentives. 
“I’m cautiously optimistic we can do that,” he said. “It will, though, take political leadership and a willingness to be disruptive.”

Improving maternity care was also the subject of a one-hour panel discussion. One panelist said payment model reform was “at the top of the bucket” for improving maternity care.

Bhairavi Parikh, chief operating officer at digital women’s healthcare company Wildflower Health, said the current system doesn’t work.

“Right now, if something gets broken you fix it,” she said. “That’s not the way to do it; you need to prevent it in the first place.”

Payment model reform, Parikh said, “enables you to improve maternity care outcomes, but also allows you to provide support for patients and providers to do the right thing. For the patient, that means eating right, taking their medication and going to visits. For providers, it means giving the right referrals and coordinated care. We are not equipped to do this (the right way) today.”

Keeping with the theme of fixing a broken healthcare system, Paul Grady, principal of Alera Group, a Hartford-based insurance agency, moderated a discussion entitled, “Accelerating Healthcare Transformation with Innovation in Connecticut.”

Grady told those in attendance, many nodding with agreement: “There does not appear to be any urgency to do things differently. That has to change. People can’t afford to pay for care, but we (those in attendance and speakers) are the people that can make things change. There are lots of opportunities to be better.”

Grady said the primary care system was “broken” and that change begins with the pay structure.

“You need to change how doctors and hospitals are paid. Instead of fee-for-service, there needs to be acceptance of a value-oriented payment system,” Grady said.

Moving away from fee-for-service was a popular theme among many speakers.

John Chabot, mid-market sales lead manager for Bind, a healthcare insurance company and subsidiary of UnitedHealthcare, delivered a PowerPoint presentation which, he said, “shows the consequences of our broken health insurance system.”

That PowerPoint showed that, according to Bind, employees paid an average of $5,588 annually toward the cost of their coverage. He said it’s estimated that $1 trillion in healthcare spending is wasted in the U.S.

Chabot said “transparency is key” to begin to fix the system.

“How do we fix it? Transparency is the key in getting information out to consumers in a way that is digestible to them,” Chabot said.

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