A representative from a healthcare consulting firm spoke to Homer residents inside the Homer City Council Chambers Tuesday afternoon about ways to improve healthcare on the Kenai Peninsula.
The Kenai Peninsula Borough convened a healthcare task force last fall to find better ways to provide healthcare in the borough at a lower cost. The borough hired the consulting firm, Stroudwater Associates, for the same reason.
Erick Shell with Stroudwater Associates told attendees the payment system for healthcare is changing around the entire country and soon the current fee-for-service system will be unsustainable.
Shell said Stroudwater is encouraging the hospitals in the Kenai Peninsula Borough to start preparing for a shift to a population-based payment system as soon as possible.
“A population of say 14,000 in Homer would aggregate payment to fund their healthcare and sick care. Which involves hospitals, physicians, public health, ambulance, home health, nursing homes all coming together to most efficiently provide, again, healthcare and access to sick care,” said Shell.
Shell said a number of factors are driving the shift to population-based payment systems. He said the federal government is pushing the change and the fee-for-service system, which pays hospitals by the amount of care they provide rather than quality of care, is falling apart.
Shell also recommended Kenai Peninsula hospitals pool their resources and share costs as much as possible.
The group is holding similar forums with other communities around the peninsula. They will share their preliminary report on the peninsula’s healthcare system, and feedback received from peninsula residents, with the Borough’s Healthcare Task Force during their monthly work session.
