I had the opportunity last week to talk and learn about the future of office-based medical practice. The occasion was my participation in a panel discussion sponsored by a manufacturer of equipment for medical offices. A professional facilitator conducted a day-long interactive interview of 6 panelists, strategically selected from non-competing health care markets across the country. We talked about what was going on nationally, regionally and in our own organizations in order to provide a context for the sponsor’s strategic planning.
Much of what we talked about centered on the transition from “volume to value,” the catch-phrase for the movement away from fee-for-service to some form of quality-based payment system. The content of the discussion reminded me of the saying that “the future is already here, it’s just not distributed evenly yet.” Physician leaders from west-coast organizations described a landscape of capitated payments and “accountable care” that we talk a lot about but have not yet lived in a significant way. A representative of an institution in Boston spoke of a more highly consolidated provider community. Those stories were interesting, but not entirely novel. Here are a few things that were: