Where Are All the Specialists? Current Challenges of Integrating Specialty Care Into Population-Based Total Cost of Care Payment Models.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Innovation Center (CMMI) has set the goal for 100% of traditional Medicare beneficiaries to be part of an accountable care relationship by 2030. Lack of meaningful financial incentives, intolerable or unpredictable risk, infrastructure costs, patient engagement, voluntary participation, and operational complexity have been noted by the provider and health care delivery community as barriers to participation or reasons for exiting programs. In addition, most piloted and implemented population-based total cost of care (PB-TCOC) payment models have focused on the role of the primary care physician being the accountability (that is, attributable) leader of a patient's multifaceted care team as well as acting as the mayor of the "medical neighborhood," leaving the role of specialty care physicians undefined.

Making a Medical Home for IBD Patients.

Purpose Of Review: The transformation from fee for service to fee for value requires structural changes to the way gastroenterologists manage patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). A team-based approach using technology to engage patients is necessary for success. The Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) represents a unique model that brings together these essential features.

White Paper AGA: The Impact of Mental and Psychosocial Factors on the Care of Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Patients with chronic medically complex disorders like inflammatory bowel diseases (BD) often have mental health and psychosocial comorbid conditions. There is growing recognition that factors other than disease pathophysiology impact patients' health and wellbeing. Provision of care that encompasses medical care plus psychosocial, environmental and behavioral interventions to improve health has been termed "whole person care" and may result in achieving highest health value.

Electronic medical records and the gastroenterologist.

This is an age of disruptive innovation in health care in which the business model is changing. Fee-for-service, volume-based systems are being replaced by fixed-fee, value-based systems. One of the major facilitating forces behind this change has been the development of the electronic health record, which is providing the medical community with the ability to have real-time quality metrics that will drive the development of web-based clinical decision support tools that will transform the current peer-review-based rules of practice with an eclectic fluid environment of continuous quality measurement and improvement.