Basics of value-based care

Physician with a mother and child during an exam.

Value-based care shifts payment toward outcomes and the daily work of primary care.

Value-based care and payment represents a movement toward adequately supporting, rewarding and growing success in primary care. Understand how and why to get started, what your options are and fundamental concepts related to value-based care and payment.

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Basics of VBC: Free CME for AAFP members

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Learn how to enhance patient care, streamline processes and improve practice efficiency as you transition to a value-based model.
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Getting started
Start where you are and build what works

There’s no single path to value-based care. You can begin by optimizing fee-for-service (FFS), revising workflows and applying risk-stratification. Start small, measure what matters and build on your successes.

Physician and team reviewing a value-based care roadmap together.

Resources and tools

  • Nine reasons to try value-based care: Learn why your peers who are successful in value-based care love it.
    Making the case

  • Easing into value-based care in three steps: Build on FFS work you already do and see benefits fast.
    Getting started

  • How to succeed in value-based care: See what your peers are doing to succeed in VBP.
    Succeeding at value-based care

  • Medicare annual wellness visits: Identify care gaps, increase revenue and prepare your practice for value-based care.
    Preparing your practice

  • Risk adjustment in team-based care: Guide your team in appropriate coding and data use.
    Understanding risks

  • Risk stratification tools: Access tools that make risk-stratified care effective.
    Risk algorithm and rubric

  • Hierarchical condition category coding (HCC): Learn how this risk model affects payment.
    Understanding coding

  • Navigating the transition for independent practices: Choose the best path forward in value-based payment (VBP).
    Choosing a path

Payment approaches
Choose payment that supports the care you deliver

Payment should reflect the care you deliver. That might mean using care management codes, joining an accountable care organization (ACO) or participating in a Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation model. Understand your options, then choose the best fit for your patients and your team.

Physicians at screens looking at medical coding.

Resources and tools

  • Care management toolkits: Integrate Medicare chronic and transitional care management services with ready-to-use tools.
    Chronic care toolkit
    Transitional care toolkit

  • Accountable care organizations (ACO): Learn how ACOs work and how to choose one that fits.
    FAQs
    Choosing an ACO

  • Physician payment and risk basics: Understand the risks, rewards and costs before entering into risk contracts.
    Payment and risk info

  • Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation: See the latest VBP models being offered to family physicians.
    Models

Advocacy
Put primary care at the center of payment

The AAFP advocates for payment models that fund continuity, coordination and whole-person care. That includes simpler measurement, fair risk adjustment and less administrative burden so your team can focus on results.

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Resources and tools

  • Payment design policy: Use the AAFP’s principles to as you review contracts so payment supports continuity and coordination, not just visits.
    Policy principles

  • Alternative payment models advocacy: See where the AAFP is pushing for simpler reporting, fair risk adjustment and predictable funding.
    Advocacy priorities

  • Performance measures criteria: See how measures in your payer contracts stack up against the AAFP’s Performance Measure Criteria.
    Measure criteria

  • Medical home definition: Use the AAFP’s policy to guide team roles, access and care coordination.
    Medical home

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