The phrase “Paying for Value not Volume” has been health reform’s mantra for several/many years.  But the concepts embodied in “Paying for Value not Volume” are problematic on two levels.  First, the term “Value not Volume” doesn’t convey a clear picture of the specific changes health reform is trying to achieve. This creates problems communicating the benefits of health reform and healthcare transformation to people who are not steeped in health policy, including most clinicians and patients.

And second, the “Paying for” part of the phrase indicates that the focus is on financial reforms. This creates a barrier to people (i.e., patients) embracing the underlying principles of “Value not Volume” because, from their perspective, changing how doctors and hospitals are paid seems unlikely to benefit them – and could potentially harm them by decreasing access or increasing their costs.  In addition, “Paying for Value not Volume” seems disconnected from the important access and clinical improvements that people care about as much as they care about cost control – if not more so.

Accomplishments Trumps Value
Therefore, rather than “Value not Volume” a better phrase would be “Accomplishments not Activity.” This phrase more directly represents what people and society really want from health reform, i.e. accomplishments in the form of better clinical and economic outcomes.

While it could be argued that “Value” captures the same intent as “Accomplishments,” “Value” is more ambiguous and less specific. For example, employees are often paid partially on the value they deliver for their company, but the specific factors used to determine that “value” are quantifiable measures such as sales or actions that produce revenue generating goods or services.

Thus, paying for healthcare accomplishments is a simpler and more direct concept. It avoids the rhetorical and cognitive extra step of translating “value” into specific accomplishments. In addition, the concept of paying for accomplishments could also include incentivizing patients for specific achievements related to improving their health or reducing their risk of illness.  In this way, “Paying for Accomplishments” is a broader term than “Paying for Value” because it connects innovations in provider and clinician payments to the expanding array of new provisions health insurance plans are adopting to motivate and help individuals achieve certain wellness goals, e.g., smoking cessation classes, weight loss incentives, etc.

Goals of Health Reform
Similarly, “Achieving Accomplishments” could be a good phrase for describing the goals of health reform, e.g., “The goal of health reform is to achieve accomplishments in three areas: improving health for populations, improving health care quality, and lowering health costs. And the accomplishments we expect to achieve this year for our [community, region, state, country] are……”

Conclusion
“Accomplishments not Activity” is a term that people can more easily understand, and this greater understanding could help the public embrace innovative payment models and insurance plan designs that – by rewarding accomplishments – are creating linked incentives for providers, clinicians, patients, and communities to collaboratively build higher performing healthcare delivery systems.