Doctor or Hospital? QualityPath Gives You Both

Doctor or hospital? Which is most important when you’re facing a high-stakes procedure? Our answer is: Both.

The QualityPath program identifies doctors and hospitals that – when working together – are at or above national measures of quality when performing high-stakes procedures. In addition to performance on these quality measures, the doctors and hospitals must also implement clinically important processes that have been shown to improve outcomes.

The words “when working together” are an important part of QualityPath. Doctors work with multiple hospitals and hospitals have multiple doctors on staff. But that doesn’t mean the results are the same for any one doctor working with any one hospital.

Working Together Makes a Difference

We think naming QualityPath providers in the form of doctor-and-hospital pairings makes a difference for patients in three key ways.

1. Teamwork Matters. The teamwork developed over time by a specific doctor and a specific hospital’s surgical team makes a difference in patient outcomes. A consistent, repeatable process is
   important.
2. Care is More Than Surgery. Teamwork also offers an opportunity to improve care among the professionals who support the patient before and after surgery. After all, the surgical procedure doesn’t begin and end at the operating room door. Instead, it involves every member of the team working together to give the patient a high-quality experience throughout their hospital stay. For many patients, that also extends through follow-up care such as physical therapy or cardiac rehabilitation.
3. Patients Have Fewer Financial Worries. While getting high-quality care is a priority, it’s also helpful when patients can take time to heal without spending hours fretting over bills and payment.
   QualityPath uses bundled payments, which means all elements of the QualityPath medical procedure are covered by a single payment to the doctor and hospital. Added benefits for patients are built into the program: when employers participate in QualityPath, they agree to cover 100 percent of medical procedure costs (special provisions apply to plans with health savings accounts, or HSAs). There’s even a 90-day warranty to cover complications related to the QualityPath procedure.

Picking ‘Both’

Doctors and hospitals apply annually to participate in QualityPath and must show they continue to meet strict criteria (to qualify as a high-quality health care provider) on an ongoing basis.