Bringing Actuarial Rigor to the Future of Value-Based Care: Lessons from Hospitalogy's VBC Retreat

Last week, healthcare leaders came together for Hospitalogy’s inaugural VBC Retreat in Austin, a gathering focused on advancing the future of value-based care. Arbital Health’s Chief Actuary, Tim Smith, joined a panel conversation alongside Jim Brown, VP of Value-Based Care at Ascension. The engaging discussion was moderated by Blake Madden, founder of Hospitalogy. The panel explored opportunities and challenges in creating sustainable value-based care programs, from improving contract transparency to aligning payer and provider incentives. We’ve highlighted a few core themes from the conversation below.

Key Takeaways

Several lessons emerged from the panel discussion:

• Measure what matters: Track the metrics that drive meaningful change, not just the ones that are easy to report.
  
  
• Align goals: Use a shared source of truth to reduce friction and support collaboration across organizations.
  
  
• Optimize strengths: Let payers focus on what they do best—managing risk and data—while providers focus on delivering high-quality care, so both sides contribute to shared goals.
  
  
• Build shared accountability: Connect teams to the outcomes they influence, fostering trust and coordinated action.
  
  
• Turn insights into results: By providing a clear, consistent view of performance, organizations can act quickly and confidently - tools like the Arbital Health Platform help bring this principle to life.

Actuarial rigor as the foundation for scaling value-based care

A central theme of the discussion was the importance of actuarial rigor. Many value-based care contracts today rely on incomplete or inconsistent methodologies, creating mistrust and misalignment between payers and providers. The discussion emphasized the need for a solid financial foundation so both sides can understand performance in real time and make informed decisions.

Addressing fragmented models

The panelists highlighted the challenge of fragmented models and inconsistent metrics, which often lead to operational friction and misaligned incentives. Blake described our current reality: “It is a data rich and insight poor environment.” Centralizing data and applying consistent methodologies provides a clear source of truth, giving both providers and payers confidence in the metrics and helping them align on meaningful interventions—an approach that Arbital operationalizes through its platform.

Building trust and neutrality

Trust emerged as another key theme. Providers and payers need confidence that the numbers guiding their contracts are accurate, neutral, and actionable. Tim summed it up with W. Edwards Deming’s famous quote “You can’t manage what you can’t measure.” Transparent and unbiased insights help reduce misalignment, support collaboration, and foster a culture of value-based care where everyone understands the expectations and outcomes.

Looking ahead We’re grateful to Blake Madden and the Hospitalogy team for hosting such a thoughtful and engaging event, and to Jim Brown and Ascension for bringing the provider perspective to the conversation. Panels like this demonstrate the importance of collaboration, clarity, and measurement in advancing value-based care across the industry.