The Road Ahead 3.0: Changing Payments, Changing Practice

The first article during my tenure as editor of the "Practice Management: The Road Ahead" section of Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology published in July 2012 (Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol 2012; 10:692-696) and outlined anticipated changes in health care delivery, due in large part to mandates or trends contained in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. A second article was published in 2013 (Health care reform 3.0: the road gets bumpy. Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol 2013; 11: 1527-1528). In this month's Road Ahead column, Dr Spencer Dorn, faculty at University of North Carolina, adds a third update with an article focused on alternative payment models. These new reimbursement models are becoming common and will be part of all of our practice strategies in the years to come. No matter what occurs in the 2016 election, the movement from volume- to value-based payment will continue relentlessly, and practices that do not understand how to respond will struggle. We hope these articles will kick-start conversations in your practice.