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A challenging yet critical leadership imperative.
Alignment is the degree of unity of purpose that results in a symbiotic and mutually beneficial relationship with physicians. The misalignment of financial incentives, which stems largely from the prevailing fee-for-service reimbursement model, can contribute to wide clinical practice variation and overuse, adding to rising healthcare costs.
It has also resulted in the perception that physicians, who were once considered heroes for driving more revenue, are threatening already-thin margins as payers increasingly move from volume-driven to value-based reimbursement.
A challenging yet critically important leadership imperative is to engage physicians in being champions and active participants in organizational performance improvement initiatives while also aligning their financial incentives.
Despite the importance of physician alignment, many organizations do not have a formal plan with clearly defined measures of success.
Although healthcare leaders understand the importance of a strong relationship with the physicians who practice at healthcare organizations, many struggle with choosing an effective alignment strategy from a variety of models, incentive structures and confounding regulations.
Providence Alaska: Aligning for Success Providence Alaska in Anchorage is the market leader with a reputation for high-quality, accessible care; however, leadership was concerned that the movement to value-based care could be incongruent with the perspectives and perceptions of its largely independent clinical staff. The future success of the system was anticipated to be mostly predicated on how tightly aligned it could be with its physicians.
Using an evidence-based physician alignment survey to quantify physicians' attitudes and beliefs, combined with extensive stakeholder interviews conducted by an external consultant, leadership identified and prioritized opportunities to tighten alignment with the clinical staff. "We have heard the collective physician voice request to be involved in Providence Alaska's processes, and the alignment survey is an important first step in understanding how to best...