Partnership for Healthcare Payment Reform Initiative

WAFP actively participates in the Partnership for Healthcare Payment Reform (PHPR), which will pilot new payment models designed to reduce costs and improve the quality of health care in Wisconsin. PHPR emerged under the sponsorship of the Wisconsin Health Information Organization.

Serving on the PHPR steering committee, WAFP joined a coalition of organizations in planning a leadership summit in April 2010. This event drew 170 leaders representing Wisconsin health care providers, purchasers, payers, consumers and government. The summit participants formed three separate workgroups to begin detailed plans for payment reform initiatives in the areas of acute, chronic and preventive care.

These workgroups adopted project charters and identified their deliverables, all working from the fundamental hypothesis that patient outcomes will improve if the health care payment system fosters competition among providers based on the quality and cost of care. The workgroups chose to focus on specific medical processes or conditions: total knee replacement, adult diabetes and cancer screenings. Of note, WAFP led the chronic care subgroup that defined the pilot selection criteria and the measures for pilot success.

In their next phase, the workgroups are selecting provider organizations to participate in the pilot projects, using an inclusive and transparent evaluation process. The PHPR timeline calls for its pilot projects to begin implementation in mid-2011. As insights and key learnings emerge from these projects, they will be shared with the broad spectrum of health care stakeholders.