The bill, introduced last week by U.S. Reps. Diane Black and Earl Blumenauer, grew out of a decade of work by health policy researchers affiliated with the U-M’s Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation. It would allow Medicare Advantage plans to use innovative “value-based” insurance designs that could save both the federal government and patients money.
It’s the most recent example of how the products of U-M health research are informing national and state policies and legislation – a key emphasis for the university’s Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.
The bill, H.R. 5183, even carries the U-M-developed concept in its name: the Value-Based Insurance Design (VBID) for Better Care Act of 2014. The sponsors specifically credit the U-M V-BID Center for the policy work that underpins their proposal.
The V-BID Center’s faculty and staff, based in the U-M School of Public Health and Medical School, have also worked with numerous private and public payers, employers, unions, and business coalitions nationwide. Together, they’ve proven a central V-BID premise: that reducing out-of-pocket costs for selected high-value medical services for certain patients can improve health outcomes, reduce disparities and potentially slow the growth of health care costs.
For instance, Pitney Bowes, a Fortune 500 company, saved $1 million in employee health costs in one year, when complication rates for asthma and diabetes dropped after the company lowered the out-of-pocket cost of medications. In some states, public health plans have adopted V-BID principles.
The new bill would allow the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to establish a regional demonstration program for high-quality Medicare Advantage plans to use value-based design in their insurance coverage. More details: black.house.gov/press-release/black-blumenauer-introduce-vbid-better-care-act-2014.
The V-BID Center’s faculty are among the 400 U-M researchers who study health care delivery, safety, outcomes and behavior as part of the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation. As its name suggests, one of the institute’s key goals is to foster the ability of U-M research to inform all aspects of public health care policy on the state and national level. For more about IHPI, visit www.ihpi.umich.edu.
For more about the V-BID Center, its research, and examples of public and private health care organizations that have endorsed or implemented the V-BID concept, visit www.vbidcenter.org.# # #