"The good news, potentially, is that you can get away from this old system that has existed for much of the past, where the practices could make money on drug reimbursements (which is how they made money to finance other things), but it would create potentially distorted incentives. You've still got to get it right, though," he added.
Although it’s still early, the pilot program is a good place to start, according to Dr. Lichter.
"One wants to start a pilot project in situations where there’s a lot of grounding in the types of therapies that are appropriate, so the choices are relatively limited and you can draw a box around the universe of care. If you find out that this works – if the patients are satisfied, the payers are satisfied, the system seems to be working well, and you’ve done the appropriate tweaks and nips and tucks to make it better – then you have to begin to expand it," he said.