What is the goal of risk-based payment models?

• A. Align incentives to control costs while maintaining or improving quality
• B. Increase revenue regardless of outcomes
• C. Decrease quality metrics
• D. Eliminate shared savings

Answer: (A)

Risk-based payment models are built to align financial incentives with both spending and outcomes. The goal is to encourage providers to control total costs across a care episode or period while still delivering high-quality care, with the possibility of sharing in savings when performance targets on cost and quality are met. This dual aim—reducing unnecessary spending without sacrificing quality—is what makes this the best answer. The other options miss the balance: simply increasing revenue without regard to outcomes, reducing quality, or removing the shared-savings mechanism all undermine the incentive structure that risk-based models use to drive value in care.