According to a study conducted by the Commonwealth Fund (in collaboration with researchers at Harvard University and Phreesia), when the COVID-19 pandemic first hit, outpatient visits declined by nearly 60% over a single month.
Practices that had already entered into value-based care contracts with payers prior to March 2020 were in a much better position to weather the pandemic. Not only did they already have structures in place to provide for better health outcomes in the absence of in-person visits, but they had the revenue to invest in technologies that would allow them to continue fee-for-service appointments remotely.
This paper, a joint effort between MGMA and Allscripts, and authored by Allscripts value-based care experts Marsha S. Boyle and Kortney Gunther, examines recent data on value-based care practices and how they successfully weathered lower patient volumes during the pandemic.