Roundtable: Costs of Care and the ACA, Part IV

Moderator: Laura Palmer

Senior Industry Analyst

Medical Group Management Association

Neel Shah, MD, MPP

Harvard Medical Faculty

Founder, Executive Director of Costs of Care

Peter Goldbach, MD

Chief Medical Officer

Health Dialog

Joe Fifer, CPA

President, CEO

Healthcare Financial Management Association

Panelists discuss compensation changes in health care organizations as the industry looks at longer term, population health management philosophies.

Peter Goldbach, MD, the chief medical officer of Health Dialog, highlights how some of the new models, like patient-centered medical homes, lend themselves to the altruistic nature of physicians who want to provide care.

“The notion that we’re going to make a significant change in overall health care spend without changing any payment mechanisms is illogical,” Joe Fifer, CEO of the Healthcare Financial Management Association pointed out.

Plus, Neel Shah, MD, an instructor at Harvard Medical School and the founder of the non-profit Costs of Care, discusses how there are more opportunities now for medical students who are interested in the financial side of medicine.

“That being said, even those of us with MPHs and MBAs, aren’t necessarily any better off knowing how to deliver high-value care on the ground,” he said.