title: Risk alignment in health care quality and financing: optimizing value.
abstract: How should health care best consolidate rational cost control while preserving and enhancing quality? That is, how can a system best optimize value? A limitation of many current health management modalities may be that the power to control health spending has been expropriated from physician providers, while they are still fully responsible for quality. Assigning responsibility without authority is a significant predicament. There are growing indications that well-organized, well-managed groups of high quality physicians may be able to directly manage both types of risk-quality and financial. The best way to optimize responsibility and authority, and to control financial and quality risks, is to place such responsibility and authority within the same entity.
authors.affiliation: Oxford Health Plans, Trumbull, CT, USA.
authors.forename: A V
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Granata
mesh_terms: D003258:Consumer Behavior; D003363:Cost Control / Q000379:methods*; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000592:standards; D005376:Financial Management / Q000379:methods; D006302:Health Services Research / Q000379:methods*; D017009:Professional Autonomy; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D012308:Risk Management / Q000379:methods*; D012945:Social Values; D013597:Systems Analysis; D014481:United States