Value-based care (VBC) promises improved outcomes for patients, healthcare providers, and health plans, and there is growing pressure for health systems to shift from a traditional fee-for-service model to a value-based approach. Yet despite policy momentum and payer incentives, many healthcare organizations hesitate to embrace alternative payment models due to the risks and investments needed to meet contract performance standards.
At the same time, advances in precision medicine and artificial intelligence (AI) are changing the economics of care, though the clinical promise of these technologies often comes with further up-front costs and delayed returns.
This is where structured capital strategies can play a crucial role. Receivables financing, underwriting, and phased investment tools can help give healthcare organizations the financial runway needed to test, scale, and sustain value-based care efforts.
Below is an excerpt from our new white paper, Financing the Future of Care.
Where Value-Based Care Stalls, and Where Capital Can Help
The following outlines the most persistent challenges to adoption and the financing levers that can combat them across physician practices, hospitals, and specialty groups.
Challenge 1: High Up-Front Investment Costs
Genomic testing, molecular diagnostics, care navigation, and advanced data infrastructure typically don’t deliver positive returns for years – too long for most providers to sustain self-funded investments. Models suggest that well-implemented pharmacogenomics programs typically take one to three years to show positive ROI1, for example.
Opportunity: Strategic financing can spread these investments over time. Working capital facilities, structured loans, or phased financing aligned with milestones allow organizations to fund technology and staff now while linking repayment to MIPS performance adjustments, per-member-per-month (PMPM) incentives, or future shared savings.
Challenge 2: The Lag Between Care and Compensation
Shared savings, performance bonuses, and reconciliation payments often arrive months, or even a full year, after a VBC contract’s performance period ends, long after the clinical work is done.
Opportunity: Receivables financing can turn expected shared savings or bundled payment receivables into current liquidity. Physician practices could apply the same approach to expected MIPS payment adjustments. By converting future dollars into available cash, providers can reinvest immediately in care management and performance improvement.
Challenge 3: Disconnected Systems and Data
Integrating new technologies or workflows into existing systems adds layers of complexity most health systems are reluctant to take on. In one survey, 75% of healthcare leaders identified a lack of data interoperability as a barrier to adopting VBC2. Providers relying solely on EHRs find themselves at a disadvantage, because genetic testing can improve drug therapy only when the patients’ PHI is shared across their care network.
Opportunity: Automation tools, including AI-assisted coding, automated MIPS reporting, and claims reconciliation, can reduce manual workload. On the medical records side, partnering with vendors that embed genomic results directly into EHRs – or offer systems that can connect to EHRs – can shorten the adoption curve and reduces errors. These integrations can be funded through staged investments, easing up-front burdens.
Challenge 4: Managing Financial Risk Exposure
Financial risk is one of the most significant reasons health systems avoid transitioning payment models or investing in personalized health technologies. The fear of downside exposure overshadows the potential for shared savings. A 2025 study found 87% of surveyed hospitals, ACOs, Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), Clinically integrated Networks (CINs), and specialty care providers cited financial risk as the top barrier to adoption2.
Opportunity: Underwriting mechanisms and reinsurance tools can limit exposure when health systems work with financial partners that can structure them. Financing options that cover initial capitalization for risk-bearing entities or carve-outs for high-cost therapies can give providers confidence to participate without jeopardizing financial stability.
Challenge 5: The Cost of Population-Scale Genomic Testing
Genomic testing is valuable but expensive. Scaling it across large patient pools requires substantial funding, not to mention vendor vetting to ensure results align with expectations.
Opportunity: Pooled funding strategies can support patient-level testing while capturing economies of scale. Investing at the population level lowers per-patient costs and spreads risk, shortening the time to ROI. Smaller practices can participate in pooled models through ACOs, CINs, or payer partnerships that distribute costs and reduce individual exposure. Working with financial partners that have a network of vetted vendors can ease the work of finding the right vendor to reach value-based goals.
Executives who align financing with their value-based care strategy can help position their organizations to capture measurable savings and improve patient outcomes.
Get the full picture, including financing frameworks, industry leader insights, and next steps for aligning capital with revenue timing by downloading Financing the Future of Care.
Huntington Bank’s Healthcare Banking Team has worked with thousands of healthcare organizations across the country to design and implement capital strategies tailored to their unique needs. To learn how these approaches could work for your organization, reach out to start the conversation.
1American Pharmacogenomics Association. June 2025. “Pharmacogenomics ROI: Building the Business Case for Healthcare Systems.”
2Innovaccer and NAACOs. 2025. “The State and Science of Value-Based Care 2025.”
Disclosures
The information provided in this document is intended solely for general informational purposes and is provided with the understanding that neither Huntington, its affiliates nor any other party is engaging in rendering tax, financial, legal, technical or other professional advice or services or endorsing any third-party product or service. Any use of this information should be done only in consultation with a qualified and licensed professional who can take into account all relevant factors and desired outcomes in the context of the facts surrounding your particular circumstances. The information in this document was developed with reasonable care and attention. However, it is possible that some of the information is incomplete, incorrect, or inapplicable to particular circumstances or conditions. NEITHER HUNTINGTON NOR ITS AFFILIATES SHALL BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES, LOSSES, COSTS OR EXPENSES (DIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR OTHERWISE) RESULTING FROM USING, RELYING ON OR ACTING UPON INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT OR THIRD-PARTY RESOURCES IDENTIFIED IN THIS DOCUMENT EVEN IF HUNTINGTON AND/OR ITS AFFILIATES HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF OR FORESEEN THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES, LOSSES, COSTS OR EXPENSES.
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