Risk sharing in an integrated delivery system

Development of an effective risk-sharing plan within an integrated delivery system (IDS) involves a complex decision-making process, in which the IDS should carefully assess its options to determine which will best suit its needs. In general, an IDS needs to consider four basic issues: how centralized the financial control of the risk-sharing plan should be; how the plan should be structured (eg, the number and size of budgets, interim provider payment, and the method for allocating surpluses and deficits to provider groups and individual providers); what risk-sharing strategies should be pursued; and how to avoid potentially catastrophic risk.