Who Owns Child Health?: Financing Pediatric Health Care in the Post-COVID Era

Chair(s)

• 

  David Keller, MD (he/him/his)

  Professor of Pediatrics and Vice Chair of Clinical Strategy and Transformation
  Pediatrics
  University of Colorado School of Medicine
  Aurora, Colorado, United States

Session

Description: The structure of health care is changing in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, market forces and the Affordable Care Act were driving clinical practice toward consolidation, team-based care and value-based payment. During the pandemic, health care providers faced tremendous challenges as rules were suspended, encounter volumes fluctuated wildly, Medicaid enrollment boomed and many pediatric hospital beds were converted to adult care. As the pandemic ebbed, new trends emerged within a disrupted system. Rapid shifts in Medicaid enrollment impacted access to care for many clinically and socially vulnerable children. Federal support for hospitals through the Disproportionate Share payments remained tenuous, and commercial payers moved to value-based payments emphasizing management of adults’ – rather than children’s – chronic health conditions. Finally, venture capital moved into the pediatric space, impacting access to and the delivery of pediatric health care services. This symposium will introduce the audience to the challenges faced by both academic and non-academic pediatricians and child-focused hospitals and health care systems in each of these areas, along with evidence for how these changes will likely impact our practices, the care received by children and child health outcomes.

Presentations:

• 11:00 AM – 11:10 AM ET

  Introduction
  

  Speaker: David M. Keller, MD (he/him/his) – University of Colorado School of Medicine
• 11:10 AM – 11:30 AM ET

  Medicaid Unwinding and Reform: Building a Financing System that Works for Children, Youth, and Health Care Providers
  

  Speaker: James M. Perrin, MD (he/him/his) – MassGeneral for Children; Harvard Medical School
• 11:30 AM – 11:50 AM ET

  Extend, Partner, Consolidate: Options and Imperatives for Children's Hospitals Facing Today's Financial Strains
  

  Speaker: Matthew M. Davis, MD, MAPP (he/him/his) – Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago
• 11:50 AM – 12:10 PM ET

  Private equity and Pediatric care: A neonatal care study
  

  Speaker: Scott A. Lorch, MD, MSCE (he/him/his) – The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
• 12:10 PM – 12:30 PM ET

  Q & A
  

  Speaker: David M. Keller, MD (he/him/his) – University of Colorado School of Medicine