In this episode of “Inside Health Care,” we chat with a prominent NCQA board member about flipping fee-for-service models to value-based models, all in order to ease digital transformation. Then, we talk about the challenges and true rewards of pursuing Credentialing Accreditation.

Dr. Craig Samitt is the CEO and Founder of ITO Advisors, an advisory and investment firm committed to value transformation of the health care industry. Dr. Samitt sits on many boards in addition to NCQA’s Board of Directors. He also serves as a strategic advisor to federal agencies, public and non-profit health plans and numerous digital health and care delivery organizations.

At the Health Innovation Summit, Dr. Samitt will panel alongside NCQA President Peggy O’Kane and other experts. In a session called “Payment Models and Digital Transformation,” they’ll discuss the opportunities and challenges associated with digital transformation in a fee-for-service landscape.

Bill Vargo is Program Manager in the Northwestern Medicine Physician Network of Northwestern Medicine. He helped lead Northwestern Medicine through NCQA’s Credentialing Accreditation process, and he wanted to share with us the need for this program, the rewards of simply going through the evaluation and how Northwestern did it.

NCQA Credentialing Accreditation helps improve credentialing and protects consumers by ensuring a consistent, effective and diligent credentialing process. It provides a framework for organizations to implement industry best practices that help them efficiently credential and re-credential health care professionals.

Later in our Fast Facts segment, we observe August as National Breastfeeding Month with some data on federal legislation regarding breastfeeding in the workplace. This information is provided by an independent nonprofit organization, the United States Breastfeeding Committee. We then describe NCQA’s Prenatal and Postpartum Care HEDIS quality measure, also known as PPC.