Bridges To Excellence

• Overview
   
• Testimonials
• Employer Tools and Resources
• Participating Employers
• Value Driven Health Care

Participation > Employers

Employer Participation

Employers and health plans collaborating around a specific initiative is the way to catalyze the health care system to change and improve.  And creating meaningful incentives for physicians to greatly encourage them to focus on the hard task of reengineering their care processes is a key element to improvement.  This reengineering is necessary if employers are ever to realize the true value associated with the significant amounts of resources currently spent on health care.  Review BTE's savings analyses and ROI Calculator for more information.

The collective action of employers and plans to-date around BTE programs, and now the Partnership for Value Driven Health Care, has even further galvanized the commitment between the public and private sector.  The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Michael Leavitt has issued a broader challenge extending to other purchasers to implement “four cornerstones of value-driven health care”: utilizing health information technology, measuring and publishing quality information, measuring and publishing price information, and creating positive incentives for high quality, efficient health care. The Secretary’s call to action affords employers and other health care purchasers, a unique opportunity to accelerate this movement.

Employers that participate in BTE meet the commitment to the four cornerstones.

With this in mind, Value Driven Health Care - a Purchaser Guide was developed to assist purchasers to quickly identify which initiatives they can undertake to meet each of the cornerstones. 

Employers need to know that better quality can cost less and incentives work.

High quality care can be cost effective care. BTE’s analyses of claims data comparing patients that are seen by BTE-recognized physicians and those that go to non-recognized physicians shows conclusively that their average severity-adjusted cost of care is lower by about 10%. In addition, BTE has done a comprehensive evaluation and has published many articles describing the genesis and principles of the programs. A full review of its original four pilot sites is available (Boston, MA, Cincinnati, OH, Louisville, KY, Schenectady, NY), including an evaluation that demonstrates the programs’ effectiveness:

1. Incentives that reward physicians for adopting better systems of care result in physician practice reengineering and adoption of health information technology;
2. Incentives that reward physicians for delivering good outcomes to patients with diabetes result in physicians changing the way in which they practice care – from reactive to proactive – and in patients getting better care;
3. Physicians that are recognized for adopting better systems of care and physicians that deliver better outcomes for patients with diabetes are more cost-efficient (on a severity and case-mix adjusted basis) than physicians that are not recognized;
4. Performance measures that focus on intermediate outcomes for patients with diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, coronary artery disease and cardio-vascular disease, and measures of effective treatment protocols for patients with recent cardiac events hold the highest clinical and actuarial value of most measures of ambulatory care.

Participating in Bridges to Excellence

BTE’s operational model is essentially administered by health plans that have licensed the program. This makes it straightforward and easy for employers of any size to participate in a BTE program.  Just follow these steps:

1. Check to see if BTE is in your area. If we are, contact the Regional Contact for your area letting them know you are interested in participating. If BTE is not yet in your area, read more about the different types of BTE implementations and how to start one.
   
2. Notify your health plan(s) of your desire to participate.  Make sure that your plan contracts stipulate that they have to implement BTE on your behalf or sign a contract amendment for contracts already in place that stipulates the terms of the employer’s participation. 
   
3. Monitor and drive health plan administrator deliverables.  Employers should discuss with their administrator(s) what their specific expectations and targets are.
   
4. Participate in regular Regional Steering Committee calls to get updates of what's new at BTE and in your region.  Regional Steering Committee participants help to develop market goals and timelines that directly affect you as an employer, including contract signing, rewards payments and invoicing frequencies.
   
5. Communicate your participation in the program to employees, emphasizing the importance of seeing recognized physicians.  Make BTE's quality ratings site available to employees so that they can both research the qualifications of their physicians and provide input on their experience with their physician's care. 

For more information on how to become a participating employer, contact BTE.