Do We Have the Spark?

Upgrading any system is challenging. Neglecting continuous monitoring and evaluation might impose solutions that worsen the situation. Primary orientation toward increasing productivity is the main reason for the tremendous decline in the accessibility of outpatient services in Slovenia since 2015, in addition to additional funds from the state budget. In the actual 'fee-for-service', providers are incentivised to deliver more expensive services, not first visits. Although the stakeholders are not to blame, it is high time for an orientation towards patients' needs: a breakaway from inefficient technical solutions, an acceptance of patients as active participants in decision-making, measurement of their treatment outcomes, and the adoption of already proven advanced payment models, such as population-based payments. The journey towards value-based healthcare must start!

Telehealth to Address Health Disparities: Potential, Pitfalls, and Paths Ahead.

Telehealth has the potential to address health disparities, but not without deliberate choices about how to implement it. To support vulnerable patients, health policy leaders must pursue creative solutions such as public-private partnerships, broadband infrastructure, and value-based payment. Without these initiatives or others like them, health disparities are likely to persist despite telehealth's tantalizing potential.

Policy and Payment Challenges in the Postpandemic Treatment of Heart Failure: Value-Based Care and Telehealth.

Increasing patient and therapeutic complexity have created both challenges and opportunities for heart failure care. Within this background, the coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic has disrupted care as usual, accelerating the need for transition from volume-based to value-based care, and demanding a rapid expansion of telehealth and remote care for heart failure. Patients, clinicians, health systems, and payors have by necessity become more invested in these issues. Herein we review recent changes in health care policy related to the movement from volume to value-based payment and from in-person to remote care delivery.

Inaugural Pharmacogenomics Access and Reimbursement Symposium.

The Pharmacogenomics Access & Reimbursement Symposium, a landmark event presented by the Golden Helix Foundation and the Pharmacogenomics Access & Reimbursement Coalition, was a 1-day interactive meeting comprised of plenary keynotes from thought leaders across healthcare that focused on value-based strategies to improve patient access to personalized medicine. Stakeholders including patients, healthcare providers, industry, government agencies, payer organizations, health systems and health policy organizations convened to define opportunities to improve patient access to personalized medicine through best practices, successful reimbursement models, high quality economic evaluations and strategic alignment. Session topics included health technology assessment, health economics, health policy and value-based payment models and innovation.