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In the Journal of the American Medical Association, VSSL's Joshua Liao penned an article with Risa Lavizzo-Mourey (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Equity and Health Policy Professor Emerita, University of Pennsylvania) and Amol Navathe (Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania) arguing that it is time for the US to set national goals for paying for equity.
According to Dr. Liao and colleagues, one issue is that disparities are widely viewed as “unintended” consequences of payment policy. The authors argue that this notion "must be abandoned, and instead, an explicit new intention and goal must be set to reduce disparities through payment programs." In other words, intention matters, and precedes implementation.
The authors argue that to do so, policy makers should engage the clinical community and translate lessons from the early value-based payment movement into 3 changes to “pay for equity”:
1. Set bold national pay-for-equity goals over the next decade
2. Revise legislation by incorporating equity into definitions of value
3. Convene clinicians, insurers, community organizations, and patient advocates into a multidisciplinary group to guide an agenda for achieving new equity goals