Opportunities and challenges of value-based healthcare: how Brazil can learn from the United States’ experience

Abstract

The movement toward value-based care is an evolution occurring in many nations of the world. The increasing population, longer life expectancy, and rising cost for high-tech care necessitates that government and private payers around the world devise new ways to ensure that healthcare dollars are spent on the most impactful interventions. In this viewpoint, we present the case of the value-based care transformation that is currently in its infancy in Brazil. Brazil has a mix of private and public payers but still largely reimburses based on a fee-for-service model. We contrast that with recent experience in the United States, where value-based care is slowly but surely becoming the norm. The Brazilian system has many opportunities to learn from the US shift to value-based care – including the development of quality measures, transition to value-based payment, and leveraging data to rank performance across Brazilian health systems. Pharmaceutical manufacturers in Brazil can play a role as well, with value-based agreements and partnerships with payers. Each nation will travel on its own path to value-based healthcare, but the opportunity to learn from each other presents one of the best chances for success.