Catalyst for Payment Reform

The Action is on the Field, Not the Sideline

Employers and other health care purchasers – it’s time to step off of the sidelines and onto the field. Across CPR’s membership and broader audience, there has never been more innovation and agency among health care purchasers than there is today.

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Three Provisions to Give Your 2022 ASO Agreement Extra Spice

CPR published a collective set of demands that purchasers should include in their ASO agreements. When multiple purchasers ask for the same thing at the same time, it broadcasts a powerful signal to TPAs on purchaser priorities. Among these aspirational yet foundational expectations, the delivery is in the details. Here are three provisions of note in CPR’s latest model contract language.

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Understanding the Bioethics Behind Employer Vaccine Mandates for COVID-19

Should employers impose COVID-19 vaccine mandates? The keyword here is “should” (“can” is a legal question that has already been largely answered and is not the subject of this blog). But “should vaccination be required” leaves room for debate. While bioethical analyses typically rely on multiple frameworks, this blog should be considered a primer on two of the ‘hallmark’ bioethical principles: autonomy and justice.

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Reference-based pricing: 3 models that cut health care cost inflation at its roots

Employers and consumers are eager for solutions that attack health care cost inflation at its root cause. One prominent strategy is using reference-based pricing (RBP) models that anchor commercial rates to Medicare, or some other rationalized external benchmark.  Like so many health care innovations, reference-based frameworks encompass multiple branching models, and as such the term “RBP” has come to mean different things to different stakeholders. 

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CPR Library Chocolate Box

This 10-day daily email series will guide you around CPR’s resource library so you’ll see the range of topics and product types that we cover. Introducing the “CPR Library Chocolate Box” in the form of a free treat, aka CPR resource, every day leading up to Valentine’s Day.

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Any Way the Wind Blows: The Future of Heath Care Payment Reform

A tornado is what comes to mind when thinking about the future of alternative payment models (APMs).  It’s not because the health care ecosystem (let alone APMs) are poised to wreak horrific destruction upon us all. Rather, the tornado analogy derives from the powerful and influential forces blowing the APM movement in multiple and conflicting directions.

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The Great Delivery System Shake-Up

“What I see now is confusion, disorientation, uncertainty, and anxiety.  That creates an opportunity, but it doesn’t provide a direction.” – David Blumenthal, President of The Commonwealth Fund, speaking at

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If you’re playing without a REF, you can’t trust the scoreboard

Introducing new tools from CPR to standardize the evaluations of Centers of Excellence, High Performance Networks, Reference Based Pricing programs, Bundled Payments. Each tool is tailored to measure relevant program performance in terms of cost of care savings, quality outcomes, changes in utilization, and member experience.

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Experts discuss COVID-19 repercussions

What we’ve learned from health care economists, policy experts, and business leaders has begun to illuminate the contours of a new health care economy, re-shaped in the wake of the global pandemic.

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