Rethinking Specialty Care: New Opportunities to Improve Outcomes, Experience, and Affordability

Rethinking Specialty Care: New Opportunities to Improve Outcomes, Experience, and Affordability

As health plans take on greater accountability for outcomes and total cost of care, many are reexamining long-held assumptions about where value is created across the healthcare system.

Despite its influence on utilization, patient outcomes, and quality of life, specialty care has often remained separate from broader value-based care strategies. Today, health plans and provider organizations are exploring new ways to better connect specialty care with population health, care management, and performance improvement efforts.

This discussion will explore how leading organizations are approaching specialty care differently and where they are finding opportunities to drive measurable impact. Panelists will share practical examples of how they are strengthening collaboration across the care continuum, expanding access to specialty expertise, and exploring new models of specialty care delivery, including physician-led and digitally enabled approaches, to better support outcomes, experience, and affordability goals. 

Key Discussion Areas:

  • Where traditional specialty care models create friction for value-based care goals
  • Improving alignment between health plans, primary care providers, and specialists
  • Expanding access to specialty expertise without increasing costs or complexity
  • Moving from episodic referrals to greater accountability for outcomes
  • Practical examples of specialty care supporting population health and performance objectives
  • What health plan leaders should be watching as specialty care continues to evolve

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