Here’s one of the better questions that was emailed after the webinar was concluded:
What shared savings arrangements can happen on a small scale, for example a 4 doc office?
The (gently edited) DMCB reply:
None.
The month-to month variability in the insurance claims (think 95% confidence intervals) from a small practice makes it practically mathematically impossible to confidently compare an observed dollar amount to a target dollar amount.
There are methods that can be applied to diminish the variability (such as censoring “excess” claims and using “risk adjustment”) but, at the end of a fiscal year, a lack of documented savings could be the result of either a) poor care coordination or b) an “underpowered” or mathematically suspect claims analysis. The skeptical insurer will say it was the former and the screwed docs will say it was the latter. When that happens, docs lose.
This is an example of the “law of large numbers” and why the shared risk arrangements in Medicare ACOs have to be based on a minimum of “5000” persons. By having that many observations, the variability is blunted and measures of central tendency hold up in an actuarial basis.
And then there are the two policy implications. First of all, shared risk contract involving a relatively small practice is perilously close to the bad old days of capitation and HMOs, vs. the approach of spreading accountability across a large system that is armed with all the requisite care coordination resources A four person group can’t match that. Secondly, the insurers have little interest in putting together a payment system that could financially cripple a four person clinical practice, especially if it's primary care.
The DMCB will examine accountable-like arrangements for a small group practice in a future post.
