A new report from the American Hospital Association offers a "blueprint to lower costs, improve access, and enhance quality." Produced with input from AHA members across the country, it offers actionable and achievable strategies and solutions focused on improving the health of individuals and communities; transforming care delivery; reducing administrative waste in the system; lowering drug and device costs; and innovating to improve care outcomes. 

"As the backbone of our health care system, hospitals and health systems are committed to delivering high-quality, accessible, and affordable care in every community," AHA President and CEO Rick Pollack said. "But hospitals cannot solve affordability alone. It will require everyone — drug companies, commercial insurers, suppliers, government, patients, and others — to fix our outdated system. The strategies outlined in this report are actionable, achievable steps that can help lower costs and strengthen access to care for Americans across the country." 

Here are those five strategies:

  1. Improve the health of individuals and communities. This includes increasing access to primary care and prevention, improving transparency of pricing information, revising the tax code to protect patients from catastrophic costs, modifying requirements for high-deductible plans, and engaging individuals in their health and health care.
  2. Transform care delivery. Actions to improve affordability through value-based care transformation include enhancing Accountable Care Organizations, reforming the medical liability system, decreasing variation in care, removing legal barriers to collaboration, and better managing advanced illness.
  3. Reduce administrative waste in the system. Keys to successfully integrating this strategy include reducing regulatory friction, standardizing insurance information and claims adjudication, shifting patient cost-sharing collection to health plans, eliminating fraud and abuse, and streamlining physician licensing and credentialing.
  4. Lower drug and device costs. This involves mitigating patient-driven demand for specific high-cost therapies, incentivizing patients to use more cost-effective drugs, and paying for value.
  5. Innovate to improve care outcomes. This includes expanding access to predictive analytics and early-detection tools, using data-driven tools to prevent avoidable harm and utilization, improving access to health information technology, advancing technology-enabled care models, and aligning payment with proven digital innovations.

"We call on purchasers, policymakers, technology companies, drug and supply manufacturers, and individuals to collaborate with us on these efforts," the AHA urges.

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