Payment Reform

Working Together in the Effort to Advancing Health Equity

Most organizations need a strong business case to justify expending the resources to advance equity in patient care and health outcomes. Value-based payment models that intentionally reward advancing health equity and the quality of care may be a key strategy in creating that business case; however, state Medicaid agencies, health plans, health care delivery organizations, and communities are in the early stages of learning how to design such models.

Advancing Health Equity (AHE) provides the strategies, resources, and hands-on technical assistance for organizations seeking to create anti-racist payment reform models that reflect a twenty-first century model of care delivery. AHE believes in the transformative power of knowledge sharing across organizational, regional, and state bounds. One of our signature programs, the AHE Learning Collaborative, brings together teams from across the nation assist them in their creation and facilitation of innovative healthcare delivery models.

In 2023, state teams from the District of Columbia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, and Pennsylvania joined the existing AHE teams from Delaware, Illinois, Maine, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Washington. Over two years, AHE LC teams will design and begin implementing an integrated health care delivery and payment reform initiative to reduce health and healthcare inequities. Teams will address social drivers of health and share best practices through peer-to-peer learning opportunities.

Linking payment reform to support equitable, anti-racist care delivery transformations will be a major driver in creating sustainable medical initiatives that promote the health and wellbeing of all those served.