Last month McKesson HealthSolutions released a nationalstudy that found value-based reimbursement (VBR) has firmly taken hold but that payers and providers are struggling to operationalize some of the fastest growing payment models.
Today McKesson Health Solutions announced it has expanded its portfolio to include ClarityQx value-based payment technology through the acquisition of HealthQX. This technology enhances McKesson’s ability to help customers rapidly and cost-effectively transition to value-based care by automating and scaling complex payment models, such as retrospective and prospective bundled payment.
Health plans use ClarityQx for analytics and for automation of retrospective bundled payment models and McKesson’s Episode Management to support automation of prospective bundled payment. Pairing ClarityQx with McKesson’s Episode Management gives health plans the ability to automate retrospective bundled payment processes today and move to prospective payment as they are ready.
“The growth of bundled payment is something payers and providers can’t ignore, and we want to ensure our customers have all the tools they need to succeed,” said Carolyn Wukitch, senior vice president of McKesson Health Solutions. “These new value-based payment analytics, reconciliation, and automation capabilities complement our value-based reimbursement suite, because they give our customers the capabilities to prepare for and scale bundled payment.”
Payers and providers are under immense pressure to operationalize bundled payments. Bundled payment is projected to be 17 percent of medical reimbursement by 2021, making it the fastest growing payment model. And the CMS is now mandating bundled payment in one out of every five metropolitan areas as part of its goal to make alternative payment 50 percent of reimbursement by 2018. Yet just half of payers and only 40 percent of providers are ready to implement bundles, and nearly 75 percent don’t have the tools they need to automate these complex models.
Now, with the addition of ClarityQx, McKesson can offer health plans a more complete portfolio that can automate their medical policy, payment policy, value-based reimbursement models, provider management, and contract management.
ClarityQx was developed by HealthQX, a leading vendor of value-based payment analytic solutions for health plans and providers, which McKesson acquired in June.
“We’re thrilled to be joining McKesson Health Solutions,” said Mark McAdoo, CEO of HealthQX. “The integration of our two companies is reflective of our customers’ needs to rapidly transition from volume to value-based payments.”
