Press Release: 2018 Aligned Sourcing & Contracting Toolkit Release

BERKELEY, Calif. (Jan. 23, 2018) – To help employers and other health care purchasers align their demands when they source and contract with health plans, Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR) has released its 2018 Aligned Sourcing & Contracting Toolkit.

“For employers and other health care purchasers to have the greatest influence in shaping the health care marketplace to meet their needs, they need to send consistent messages about what they want,” said Suzanne Delbanco, PhD, executive director of CPR. “Coordinating purchaser demands amplifies their voice and strengthens their impact on the health care marketplace.”

The toolkit is free for employers and other health care purchasers, updated annually and used to set expectations of health plans during each phase of the sourcing and contracting cycle. It includes health plan request for information (RFI) questions, model contract language and a tool to help purchasers check in regularly with their contracted health plans and gain visibility into their progress with providing the support purchasers need to get higher value for their health care spending.

New features and focus this year include:

• The RFI is divided into core and optional sections, with the core focused on high-value strategies and the optional addressing clinical areas and delivery reform.
• To emphasize the importance of evaluating payment and delivery reform programs, CPR has added content to the RFI and contract language pushing health plans to share results to date and to use standard reporting templates that are easier for purchasers to digest.
• CPR updated its accountable care organization (ACO) RFI questions to reflect the questions in CPR’s recently announced suite of employer tools called Standardized Plan ACO Reporting for Customers (SPARC) designed to hold health plans accountable for reporting ACO performance.
• In keeping with CPR’s shared agenda for 2018, which includes improving maternity care through evidence-based guidelines, CPR opted to measure C-section rates using The Joint Commission’s measure of nulliparous women with a singleton baby in vertex position delivered by cesarean section (NTSV C-Section).
• Given an increased focus on mental health and well-being by purchasers, CPR added new questions to the behavioral health care section.

The RFI serves as a companion to a general request for information employers issue to prospective health plan partners, outlining what purchasers should ask health plans on a wide range of high-value health care strategies including payment and delivery reform, price and quality transparency, and network and benefit design. The model contract includes language that can be used with health plan partners to set expectations for value-oriented payment and delivery, quality and price transparency, innovative benefit and provider network designs, as well as reporting results of these efforts.

CPR’s diverse membership includes Aon Hewitt, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Group Insurance Commission, The Dow Chemical Company, Equity Healthcare, Pitney Bowes, Willis Towers Watson, and many other large private and public purchasers.