[T]he administrative entity that was created to handle the all-payer health care model could vote to suspend its operations as early as Thursday.
The entity is called the Vermont Care Organization and was set up in July to help health reform entities merge by 2019 and, over time, implement the all-payer model.
The executive committee for the Vermont Care Organization held a discussion Monday night on whether to suspend operations. The committee can recommend action to the full board of directors but cannot take official action, the board chair said.
“There was a discussion yesterday that paved the way for that decision to be made, but it hasn’t been made yet,” said Todd Moore, the CEO of both the Vermont Care Organization and OneCare Vermont, which represents hospitals.
Moore declined to comment further.
Tom Huebner, the CEO of Rutland Regional Medical Center and the chair of the Vermont Care Organization board, declined to comment on the substance of the discussion.
“The executive committee can’t take action,” Huebner said. “It can make recommendations to the full board, which it did. But that’s all I can say about it.”
The board could meet Thursday or Friday to decide whether to suspend operations.
The Vermont Care Organization is mainly the umbrella organization for two entities. One of those is OneCare Vermont, which is jointly owned by the UVM Medical Center and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. The second is Community Health Accountable Care, an offshoot of the Bi-State Primary Care Association that represents community health centers.
A third entity, HealthFirst — which represents independent doctors — was part of the negotiations to set up the Vermont Care Organization. However, HealthFirst did not merge its operations into the larger organization. Instead, the group was given some seats on the Vermont Care Organization board.
The Green Mountain Care Board had worked for nearly two years to have OneCare Vermont, Community Health Accountable Care and HealthFirst unite under one organization. The Vermont Care Organization was the vehicle that came out of those negotiations.
Huebner said in July: “We have created an umbrella organization that is intended to coordinate the work of the three (accountable care organizations) and begin to coordinate the management as well. This is all getting ready with the assumption that the all-payer model is going to work out.”
The long-run goal of the all-payer model was to have the Vermont Care Organization accept all payments from Medicare, Medicaid and commercial insurance companies. The entity would then pay doctors based on the quality of their care, not the number of procedures they perform.
Neither Huebner nor Moore would comment on what effect the potential suspension would have on the all-payer model.
CORRECTION: A subject line, “OneCare collapse,” in the Daily Digger incorrectly described a discussion about whether to suspend operations of the Vermont Care Organization.
