Contribute to Strong, Consistent Employer/Purchaser Voice:

• Join other employers in Maine’s best forum for direct dialogue among senior executives from leading hospitals, physician groups, health plans, and businesses – a seat at the table that is forging the future direction for healthcare reform in Maine.

• Add your company’s voice to that of other employers to leverage the dialogue with providers and plans.

Leverage Your Status as an Engaged Employer and Purchaser:

• Develop joint programs with other employers to:
  
  • Align RFP’s to plans to move the market.
  • Promote reimbursement reform to remove current perverse incentives that reward volume rather than quality of services.
  • Promote effective, provider-based chronic disease care management programs to augment remote, plan-based case/disease management.
  • Encourage or create health plan products that incorporate principles of evidence based benefit design.
  • Support standardized measurement and reporting of provider performance.
  • Contain the rate of increase in healthcare costs

Learning Community: MHMC’s members regularly share best practices in benefit design, health benefits purchasing, and employee health and wellness through several committees and work groups.  MHMC’s leadership and staff serve on numerous national and state organizations dedicated to healthcare value, and all knowledge is shared with the membership.  MHMC also hosts a number of members-only educational programs during the year.

• Provide your company a convenient way to stay abreast of the latest trends in healthcare and health benefits.
• Access leading national initiatives from organizations like the National Business Coalition on Health, National Quality Forum, the Leapfrog Group, Bridges to Excellence, National Committee on Quality Assurance, Consumer/Purchaser Disclosure Group, and others.

Recognition:  Providers, health plans and other employers recognize MHMC’s members as being committed to improving the quality of care delivered and the health of the communities in which we all live and work. 

Data Analysis and Reporting:  MHMC’s members contribute claims data to a proprietary claims data warehouse.  MHMC retains Health Data Management Solutions, a standard setting data management and analytic services company, to maintain this database and to provide analysis and reporting to members.  MHMC also conducts an annual survey of health benefits.  This optional membership benefit is available to our member organizations that provide health benefits to 100 or more employees.

• Compare costs, utilization and experience to that of other Maine employers.
• Request customized reports on your own experience.
• Compare health benefits to employers representing 35% of Maine’s commercial market.
• Understand the disease prevalence and profile of your employees to better target benefits and wellness programs.
• Better understand the drivers of cost such as variation in quality, utilization, efficiency and cost.

Support Your Company’s Effort to Implement Value Based Purchasing Strategies.  MHMC’s members are incorporating the four pillars of Value Based Purchasing (link to Value Based Purchasing page) into their healthcare purchasing strategy, which, according to the National Business Coalition on Health and DHHS, must be present in a market to allow employers to implement a Value Based Purchasing strategy.  The four pillars are:

1. Standardized performance measures:  MHMC’s Pathways to Excellence (PTE) program is leading a successful effort in Maine that produces standardized provider performance measures that are vetted and endorsed by Maine’s leading providers and plans and the National Quality Forum.  Membership would allow your organization to access information to implement tiered networks based on standardized performance measures that are used by other employers and have been endorsed by leading Maine providers and the National Quality Forum.
2. Publicly available information on cost and quality: MHMC produces comparative performance data on physicians and hospitals that has been tested with consumers and has been shown to be understandable and useful to employees and dependents.
   
   • Provide independent and highly regarded provider performance information to your employees and dependents to inform their choice of high quality providers.
   • MHMC’s members are collaborating to measure costs and quality at an episode of care level.  Allow your company to understand the true costs of care (unit cost x utilization) from various providers.
   • Incorporate provider endorsed cost and quality information into benefit designs.
3. Reimbursement Reform: MHMC has developed programs to reward physicians and hospitals demonstrating high quality and efficiency.  Several health plans operating in Maine have adopted these programs.  
   
   • Participate in MHMC’s Reimbursement Reform workgroup that includes hospital CFO’s, physician practice leaders, contracting specialists from health plans and employers.  This group is developing innovative payment systems that will reward outcomes rather than units of service. Aetna, Cigna and individual MHMC members have used these payment systems to reward providers in Maine.
4. • MHMC’s members have collectively retained expert consultants in social marketing and communication.  Membership would allow your company to provide information to your employees at a cost that is far less than purchasing these services independently.
   • Participate in MHMC’s Employee Activation Users Group and join other employers in delivering a consistent message to employees and dependents.
   • Access MHMC’s plug and play toolkit of employee educational materials and media.
   • MHMC has leveraged its members’ investment in this area by participating in Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grants valued at $1.5 million to further develop Consumer Engagement in Maine.  This initiative allows MHMC to draw on the collective learning of national experts and thirteen other communities across the country who are implementing consumer engagement initiatives.  Membership would allow your company to access nationally recognized best practices for engaging employees and dependents.
5. Engaged Employees & Dependents: MHMC’s Employee Activation Initiative provides messaging and logistical support for its members to communicate the importance of quality and the use of performance information to employees and dependents.