Tim Heinze, CEO of Valley Family Health Care, discussed the SHIP program with lawmakers this morning, on behalf of the Close the Gap Coalition. “I don’t think that we’re advocating for more, more, more,” he said. “What we’re really trying to do is do something different. And that’s really what SHIP is about, and what practice transformation is about.”

Heinze, who formerly worked for Kaiser Permanente in California, the pioneering managed-care organization, noted that the United States spends far more than other countries on health care, but still, many patients don’t have access to care. “We obviously need to do something different than what we’re doing,” he said. “We’re talking about changing the way we deliver medicine.”

He said, “The costs are going up because as providers, we do what any business does: We do what we get paid for, and we don’t do what we don’t get paid for.”

People delay seeking care, including preventive care, often because they can’t afford it, he said; they can’t afford their medications, and sometimes they don’t seek care until they’re very sick, with tragic results. “We spend significant time, energy and money trying to provide and arrange care that patients can afford,” Heinze said. “It’s not sustainable – we can’t do what we don’t get paid for.” That’s why health care transformation looks at “alternative payment methodologies, that pay based on quality and outcomes, and responsibility and accountability on the part of patients and on the part of providers.”