Redesigning health care organizations: The influence of government policy and methods of payment

Over the last 5 years, there has been a growing trend toward consolidation in the health care field. As reimbursement moves from a fee-for-service model to a value-based model, there will be continued pressure on physicians to either be a hospital employee or to be in a large multidisciplinary practice. This is largely due to the Accountable Care Act, which directs payers to utilize population-based cost analyses, rather than an individual patient-based analysis. To succeed in this environment, practices will have to break down traditional organizational barriers to create evidence-based algorithms for the treatment of individual diagnoses from the initial onset of symptoms until the resolution of symptoms.