Better Care Plan

The Better Care Plan is a blueprint designed to address the deficiencies in the U.S. healthcare system, such as high costs, fragmented care, variability in quality, and safety issues. The plan proposes several key reforms:

  1. Organizing and Delivering Care: It emphasizes integrated, patient-centered, technology-enabled, team-based primary care. Continuous improvement and elimination of inequities in care are central to its vision.
  2. Payment System Reform: The BCP advocates moving from fee-for-service to risk-adjusted prospective payments. This shift aims to incentivize preventive care and quality improvements while providing predictable revenue streams to providers.
  3. Data Transparency and Reporting: A national system for reporting patient safety and quality-of-care outcomes is proposed to hold providers accountable and help consumers make informed decisions. This would involve real-time data reporting, patient safety tracking, and public accessibility of health outcome data.
  4. Team-Based Care: The plan suggests that care teams, such as Medicare Advantage Special Needs Plans (SNPs), play a critical role in improving patient outcomes by focusing on coordinated care.
  5. Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI): The plan highlights the importance of CQI as a mindset, using methods like Lean or Six Sigma to drive constant improvements in patient safety and quality.
  6. Implementation Challenges: Entrenched fee-for-service models, resistance to change, and a lack of infrastructure pose significant obstacles to nationwide adoption of the BCP.
  7. Recommendations:
    • Certifying provider organizations that meet BCP standards.
    • Increasing primary care capacity through education and incentives.
    • National patient safety and outcomes reporting system.
    • Legislative actions to support these reforms.

The BCP aims to create a healthcare system that is affordable, equitable, continuously improving, and patient-centered.

A more complete description of the Better Care Plan (BCP) as envisioned in 2022-23 is contained in the following publication: The Better Care Plan: a blueprint for improving America’s healthcare system .