AEE12: Steve Blumberg and I Discuss the 2020 Humana Value-based Care Report

In this "An Expert Explains" minisode, Stacey Richter talks with Steve Blumberg, MBA, VP of practice transformation at GuideWell Health, about Humana's 2020 Value-based Care Report — and why a headline-grabbing 0.4% savings number doesn't tell the whole story.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

✅ What Humana's 2020 Value-based Care Report actually found about cost savings

✅ Why outcomes, not just raw cost differences, are the more meaningful measure

✅ Whether value-based care outperformed fee-for-service during COVID

✅ Why value-based care's impact needs to be evaluated over time, not in a single snapshot

✅ Why there's no single solution that will save health care 10% overnight

WHY THIS MATTERS

A widely circulated blog post seized on Humana's finding that its value-based care program saved just 0.4% over its non-VBC program, treating it as a damning verdict on value-based care itself. Steve Blumberg, who has worked VBC delivery on both the provider and payer side, argues that's the wrong lens: cost is only part of the story, outcomes matter just as much, and value-based care's real impact only shows up when you look at it over time rather than expecting a single silver-bullet solution to cut costs by 10%.

=== LINKS ===

🔗 Show Notes with all mentioned links: Episode Page

🔗 Healthcare Industry Acronyms and Terms

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00:00 Introduction

02:11 Does value-based care really reduce cost, according to the Humana report?

03:02 Why we should look at outcomes and not just raw costs.

04:06 Is the impact of a value-based model that much better than a fee-for-service model during COVID?

04:38 "At the end of the day, I think … the lack of a cost difference is notable, but one must think there's more to it than that."

05:44 "You have to look at these things over time."

06:02 "I think in health care we've been looking for the 'what will save 10%' solutions … and there's just no such animal."