Washington, DC — Oct. 15, 2020 — The shift to virtual care during the pandemic is here to stay, and employers and providers are coming together to address their mutual problems with America’s fragmented health care system. This news, delivered by board members of the Council of Accountable Physician Practices (CAPP) during two presentations at the 2020 Self-Insurance Institute of America’s (SIIA) annual conference held October 12 – 15, comes at a pivotal time for the future of health care.

Addressing the huge impact that telehealth now has in health care delivery, Steven Green, MD, chief medical officer for Sharp Rees-Stealy Medical Group in San Diego and CAPP board member, discussed the sudden shift to virtual care precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and how as a result, medical care will permanently change. To accommodate a 4,000 percent increase in virtual visits almost overnight, Sharp Rees-Stealy set-up additional training for physicians, invested in telehealth for home settings, implemented a physician triage line and created a telemedicine navigator role.

“While we may not continue to see the high number of virtual patient visits we are seeing during this pandemic, we anticipate that a third of all patients — including seniors — will continue to prefer this method of care delivery,” said Dr. Green.

A second SIIA presentation shared the news that two untraditional allies —self-insured employers and providers — are collaborating to fix mutual pain points in health care, through a partnership between CAPP and the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions.

“We have learned that many of the concerns that purchasers have — lack of care coordination, connectivity throughout the system through technology, timely access to the full range of care including mental health — are being resolved by the integrated medical groups and health systems that belong to CAPP,” noted Norman Chenven, MD, CAPP vice-chair and founding CEO, Austin Regional Clinic. “There are also areas that are fundamentally problematic for both groups that offer opportunities for collaboration, such as moving our system from fee-for-service to pay-for-value and finding meaningful, transparent quality metrics.”

CAPP and the National Alliance recently published a joint white paper on the results of initial discussions between the two stakeholders, “Better Together: Exploring Employer-Physician Collaborations to Deliver Quality Care.”