Financial Risk Is The Cost Of Flexibility

Over the past three weeks, I’ve sat in on a number of discussions with managers of provider organization about innovative new programs and the challenges of getting payers to pay for them. What types of innovations?  These discussions have covered everything from crisis intervention programs, recovery-focused consumer education programs, telehealth programs, and on-line treatment programs.  The most common comment is that the programs will certainly save money for the payers, so why the slow level of adoption?

There are many reasons that account for the long lead time required to convince payers to adopt a new approach . . .