According to the New England Journal of Medicine, physicians should play a leading role in achieving healthcare reform by helping achieve a guaranteed 1.5 percent annual savings in healthcare costs that would pay for covering all Americans.
Slowing the growth of healthcare costs by 1.5 percentage points annually would allow spending - including total provider income - to rise from $2.6 trillion in 2010 to $4.3 trillion in 2020, while saving the healthcare system $3.1 trillion of the estimated $40 trillion the nation is projected to spend in that 11-year period.
In "Achieving Healthcare Reform - How Physicians Can Help," Elliott Fisher, MD, MPH, professor at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, Donald M. Berwick, MD, MPP, president and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and Karen Davis, president of The Commonwealth Fund, said achieving savings that are sufficient to cover everyone is possible and "need not impose a hardship on patients or providers."
To achieve real reform, voluntary efforts to achieve savings may not be enough, and legislation may be needed that will allow the federal government to reduce updates in Medicare fees if the 1.5 percent annual savings target is exceeded, the article said. The savings should be linked to health insurance coverage for all and comprehensive reform of the healthcare delivery and payment systems.
The authors said physicians could champion reforms to eliminate waste and avoidable complications, such as integrated systems of care; innovative payment models including shared savings, bundled payments or global fees for primary, acute or comprehensive care; and performance measures that promote care coordination.
"U.S. physicians are leaders in providing excellent medical care, and can also be leaders in the effort to achieve a U.S. health system that is also excellent," said Davis. "A high performing U.S. health system is what all physicians and patients need and deserve for the future health and economic security of our nation."
“Defending the status quo is a bankrupt plan for the United States, and physicians have an opportunity to help us all see beyond it," the authors said.
"This is a clarion call to U.S. physicians to seize this once-in-a lifetime opportunity to achieve healthcare reform that deserves the name reform," said Fisher. "Physician leadership can be the key to ensuring success. Let's not miss this chance."