A report from Healthcare Finance News indicates a recent survey of payers by healthcare software provider HealthEdge shows that the majority of payers are planning to support new payment and healthcare models in the next three years.

According to HealthEdge survey, more than 50% of the 106 payer respondents said their organizations are prepared to support payment reforms including accountable care organizations (54.4%) and pay-for-performance (50.5%), as well as broader and undefined “other healthcare reform initiatives” (64.1%) and “other models involving new payment approaches” (51.5%).

The survey indicated that while payers intend to support the adoption of ACOs in the next three years, only 37.1% of the surveyed companies are currently capable of leveraging their technology platforms to properly support them. This compares with more than half of the companies that have technology in place to support pay-for-performance programs.

The survey notes the need to upgrade healthcare IT systems in order to meet the growing demand for new care and payment models.  According the report, insurance executives noted that their biggest obstacles for their IT programs are “issues related to keeping current with new standards like ICD-10 and HIPAA 5010”, cited by 31.4%, followed by ‘”high rates of manual processing/need to reduce administrative costs” (28.7%).

ICD-10 must be fully implemented within less than two years, yet only 22% of respondents said their organizations were “completely prepared,” while 36% listed their organizations as “somewhat prepared.” And, despite all the publicity and the push to get organization working on ICD-10 early, 37% answered that they were only “starting to prepare” for the new standard.
 
The survey results quote Ray Desrochers, HealthEdge executive vice president of sales and marketing in a press release noting “Our survey…revealed that many organizations are behind schedule, and many payer executives are struggling to address business needs while simultaneously trying to avoid pouring more money into the remediation of their outdated technology infrastructure. It is critical that payers make evaluating and remediating their IT systems a priority in 2012, so that they are ready to both meet the 2013 ICD-10 deadline and the other rapidly evolving needs of the new healthcare marketplace.”