The University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington is one of four hospitals that have agreed to get reimbursed for Medicaid patients based on a pre-set per-patient per-month fee. This experiment in payment reform is an attempt to get health care systems to move off of a model in which they're paid for each service they provide, and instead focus on overall health outcomes and prevention.
Eileen Whalen is the president and chief operating officer of the hospital, and she talked with Vermont Edition about the project that includes 30,000 Medicaid patients in our region, the recent capacity issues that increased wait times for some patients and an expansion project that will create private hospital rooms for patients.
Listen to the conversation with Whalen above. Broadcast on Vermont Edition on Tuesday, May 2, 2017.
